


Raveling

by Viridian5



Series: Median [3]
Category: Andromeda
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Character of Color, Drama, Dylan's bad decisions, Episode Related, Jealousy, Multi, Pop culture of the future, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-03-28
Updated: 2002-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:25:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life goes on, and Harper makes the best of it he can.</p><p>
  <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/toscaskiss/ac/acaindex.htm">
<img/></a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raveling

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "The Ties That Blind," "Harper 2.0," then "Its Hour Come 'Round at Last" through "Dance of the Mayflies."
> 
> I discussed this story in my [LiveJournal](http://viridian5.livejournal.com/~) under its working title of "Unraveling."
> 
> This story wouldn't be the same without Kass, Shotboxer, and Nico. Beta work by katapult, who also provided the title and helped with the summary, and LuzMaria. Major thanks to all of you.
> 
> _Haunted_ by Poe continues to be one of this series' muses, and "Wild" is the official theme song of "Raveling." I wrote the "in the back room with Oriya" piece while listening to Snake River Conspiracy's _Sonic Jihad_. The Barretts' guitar work sounds a lot like Days of the New. The "king of the jungle" song Sio hates to sing is their "Die Born." _And All That Could Have Been_ and _Still_ by Nine Inch Nails also proved inspirational. Guess which part of this story was scored by "The Wretched."

**ravel**: _v. tr._ 1) To separate the fibers or threads of (cloth,  
for example); unravel. 2) To clarify by separating the  
aspects of. 3) To tangle or complicate.  
[Obsolete Dutch ravelen, from ravel, _loose thread_.]  
  -- _The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English  
Language_, Fourth Edition

 

_"I go wild because it doesn't make sense  
For me to cry out in my own defense,  
And wild because I would do anything  
To tear you off your precious fence._

_So this is what it's like living in limbo:  
First I'm high, then I'm solo...."_  
  -- "Wild" by Poe  
\----------------------------------------------------------

When Dylan walked through the door to machine shop 17, he looked like hell, stiff and worn out and dead inside. Harper put his search-for-the-cure project down and asked, "It got messy, didn't it?"

"Yeah."

"You figured it would. Those nobles seemed like a nasty bunch."

"Oh yeah. They had snipers set to kill me and Eric."

Lately Harper hadn't seen much of Dylan or the prince, though he'd already seen enough of Eric for his tastes, thank you very much. Prince Eric was less arrogant than he could have been, but he still seemed to feel that other people existed only to do things for him and make his way smoother.

The nobles opposing him had been ten times worse. "You nailed them first. Self-defense."

"The property we confiscated from the nobles will go to the soldiers and people. That should help solidify support for Eric and the new democracy."

"Smart. Redistribution of wealth is very cool." Yeah, Dylan had the iron fist of pragmatism under his velvet glove of idealism and compromise. When Harper first heard that Dylan and Tyr had been declared Eric's co-regents until he claimed his throne, his knee-jerk reaction had been that it sounded like Eric's father had set an angel on one of the kid's shoulders and a devil on the other.

But Dylan was one of those angels who had burning swords and went out smiting the wicked. No harp-plucking here.

Harper had a sudden image of Dylan with wings that had midnight blue feathers with dark red accents to match his dress uniform and armed with a blazing dildo... er, force lance. It made his mouth twitch. And water a little too.

"I hope it works," Dylan said. "Maybe Eric will survive more than a month. I hope he absorbed enough of my lessons to be a better ruler than his predecessors."

"Ne'Holland may be a decent ally against the Magog."

"Yeah."

Yeah, yeah, and yeah from Dylan. Not good. Harper put his arms around Dylan and his head down on his chest. Dylan stayed stiff. "C'mon, I'm trying. Work with me here."

Dylan loosened a little against him and rubbed his back. "I know you haven't seen much of me lately."

Not even at night, to sleep together. "You were indoctrinating Eric. It's fine." Eric had no problems with buzzing people in the middle of the night if he wanted something, while Harper tended to be touchy about getting his sleep. And verbose with obnoxious people who kept him from it.

"I wasn't... indoctrinating Eric."

"Yeah, yeah. I didn't mind. Gave me time to work on stuff."

Sometimes Harper really wished that he could talk to Dylan about the avenues he was researching to get rid of the six remaining Magog larvae in his gut. Dylan could do decent patch repair jobs on the Andromeda Ascendant, but he probably couldn't poke any holes--if there were any--in Harper's current theories on how string theory and tesseracts might take out his unwanted guests. Harper was whistling in the dark here, playing with technology he didn't quite understand.

Rommie knew a lot about strings and tesseracts, but all her knowledge consisted of other people's ideas of what had already been done and thought about them, mostly from Commonwealth data circa 300 years ago. She couldn't speculate new possibilities with it, lacking that spark of wondering that led to "what if."

And if she could speculate, Harper got the feeling that she wouldn't mention any possibilities that she thought would be risky or dangerous for him, completely ignoring the fact that the alternatives he had sucked at least as bad.

How weird was it that his main hope for a cure came from that bitch Satrina and her super-villain Magog boss? Even if they hadn't intended it.

"I lined the bodies up on the grass so Eric could see the price of his throne," Dylan said quietly, looking old and very tired.

At least Dylan didn't sugarcoat. Not for others and not for himself. Once you stopped realizing that you were ruthless, badness started.

Harper still worried for Dylan's sanity, though. "Wanna go to bed?"

"I don't think I'm up for much."

"Then we sleep. Your plush something to hold is reporting for duty, Captain sir."

Dylan's mouth moved into the faintest shadow of a smile, but he said, "I don't want to use you, Harper."

"Oh yeah, like I get nothing out of the arrangement. You have to tell Beka about your thought that I'm martyred Saint Seamus. She might die laughing. _Use_ me, Dylan."

That got a genuine smile. "Wise-ass."

"You've told me many times that my ass's wisdom is merely one of the features you find appealing about it."

  


* * *

The tin whistle spun, warm and vaguely gritty -- but was the grit real or just his imagining of the dirt of his parents' grave clinging to it? -- along Harper's fingers. Did he even remember who he'd been when he'd still played this? His other hand started to ache from clenching on the flexi Dylan had given to him. The tin whistle and the transmission, parting gifts from Cousin Brendan.

Amazing how all those bodies lying on the ground after one of Dylan's plans felt different to Harper when they were Earth's people and his cousin.

At least with Ne'Holland, Dylan had _planned_ to create losses, and those losses had been enemy losses.

Harper's stomach and mind roiled with guilt, anger, and bitterness. And more guilt. It burned through his gut and brain like fire, though not quite like Brendan's revolutionary fire. Brendan was most likely dead, along with millions of others. But, hey, they'd proven that one man could make difference. Harper, alone, could incite millions of people to rise up and get themselves killed.

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. Hadn't he learned anything in his life about where hoping and trusting got you? Why the hell did he still expect anyone to keep a promise?

Dylan had no clue about his feelings. None. Yippee, the other slave worlds are rising up. You and Brendan did great work, Harper. The other slaves will, no doubt, get squashed down by their Nietzschean rulers again like on Earth, but it's _something_, right?

Why hadn't Harper recognized the look on Dylan's face when Dylan had told him he could go alone to urge the people to rise up and fight for their own freedom? Like in 300 years of oppression and slaughter nobody had ever thought to fight back until Captain Terrific suggested it? That look... it was the same smug look that the privileged, well-fed people with the money and the weapons always had when they wondered why those downtrodden, lazy bastards wanted help and didn't just fight their own battles. That look had sat right there on Dylan's face, twisting Dylan's mouth and smirking out from his eyes. All "I could really use you here, where important things are going on, but if it'll shut you up, you go down to your little enslaved homeworld and keep busy."

Nobody gave a damn about Earth; it was just another slave world of no strategic importance. If it had been Dylan's homeworld, things would be different, right? Oh, but Tarn-Vedra had been the seat of the Commonwealth, thus of _vast_ strategic importance.

Dylan probably figured that Harper couldn't see the big picture, a deficiency that undoubtedly came from growing up on a backwater world that hadn't been part of a star-spanning empire.

Harper had trusted Dylan and Andromeda to show up at the time they'd said. Brendan and the others on Earth had trusted Harper when he said that backup in the form of the most powerful warship in the known worlds was coming.

Showed how much trust was worth.

If he hadn't trusted in Dylan's ridiculous timetable -- "No plan survives the moment of engagement," right? -- if he'd held the rebellion back longer, things might have been different. What the hell had Dylan been thinking? Why had he even bothered to make the offer?

Except perhaps to shut his lover up and make him feel like he was doing something.

"Unfortunately, Earth _doesn't_ matter," Dylan had said, with a look that grew smug. "Unless we make it matter."

Two people sent as an advance party. Rommie had given some advice, planted some mines, handed over some weapons, set up surveillance... and done nothing but watch people die on camera. But Harper had just monitored the Nietzscheans and watched the dying too, and even now he wasn't sure why, no matter how many times Rommie told him that he was doing important work with the monitoring and directing. He should have been up there with everybody else getting shot at, he knew, but he just couldn't do it again.

Harper had spent his life taking on enemies bigger than he was--after all, a lot of people were bigger than he was--but he hadn't done it this time.

These months of being kept out of things due to his Magog infestation, had they broken his nerve? Rommie had been pissed off when he went out that once to save Brendan instead of sticking around safe with her, but it's not like she'd stopped him from going.

For her, it was probably a matter of wanting to keep _her_ human protected and not caring about all these dirty strangers getting themselves blown to hell. She'd said a few things that translated to that when she told him they were leaving Earth and that he could walk or she could carry him.

Maybe... maybe it was that he'd already done this, fought the Nietzscheans, beat his head against that wall on Earth over and over and over. Been there, done that. And what had it gotten him? Friends and family dead, himself tortured, numerous scars and bad memories. And what had all that bleeding, suffering, and effort done to the wall? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a dent made by his hard, hard head showed that he'd even tried.

He'd learned from that. Choose your time. Fight when you know you have a chance in hell of winning something. Make sure you have the power to back yourself up. Have a Plan B.

Don't ever return to Earth.

The Earth that was the sweet memory of home he kept in his head was the Earth of the far, far past anyway, an Earth he'd never personally seen.

Because he had Dylan's promise behind him, a promise he never quite believed but wanted so badly to, because he wanted Earth to be free, because it was _Dylan_, he'd broken every single one of those self-imposed rules. And everybody had suffered for it.

Harper had chosen his path in life, and so had Brendan. But he really wished he'd just knocked Brendan out and dragged him back to the Maru. He would have been forgiven for it eventually. Another small part of him wished he'd stayed down there and died alongside him the way he should have. A very, very small part.

Maybe he couldn't be there with the fighters because he was aware at all times that they'd been dying because of him. Because of his false hopes and big mouth.

He never should have said anything to Dylan about Earth. Never should have opened his mouth. Yeah, on Earth the slave raids had been getting worse and the transports had been revved up to take the people to death camps, but how much worse would things be now after the kludges had risen up? The crackdowns would be brutal and horrifying. The native resistance had been slaughtered, so there wouldn't be another good time to try this. Without any ground support or strategic value to grab his attention, Dylan wouldn't bother with Earth again.

Dylan hadn't even expressed sympathies. No "I'm sorry, Harper. I'm sorry that millions died because of you."

No "I'm sorry that my ego wrote out checks that my abilities couldn't cash. I'm sorry that I, Captain Terrific, keep all my promises except for this one that was the most important to you."

Instead Dylan had just handed him Brendan's last transmission and given him some crap about him and Brendan winning. Oh yeah, Brendan had won like Harper's father had won. If there was an afterlife, they were probably really proud of themselves right now.

"You made the right decision in coming back," Tyr said from the doorway.

Harper's stomach, occupied by a predatory invasion force much like Earth was, snarled into entirely new and tighter burning knots. "I'm sure you'll forgive me if I say that having a Nietzschean tell me I did the right thing makes me feel even more like shit."

And why the hell had Dylan sent _Tyr_, a Nietzschean, of all people with the news that he wasn't coming and that Harper should stop the rebellion? It was an insult to the resistance. Maybe Dylan knew that Tyr wouldn't waste any of the slipfighter's firepower trying to even the odds for the rebels.

God, he felt ill.

"You told me once that I'd be surprised at what kludges could do when pressed. They did a great deal of damage before they were put down."

How weird was it that Tyr was being comforting? That little arm clasp down on Earth, this talking to him now. Had Tyr and Dylan switched brains?

"We would have done a hell of a lot more damage if we'd had the air support we'd been promised," Harper couldn't resist saying.

"Yes. Matters would have turned out differently if our captain hadn't made too many promises, then left you and yours to hang."

_This_ was the Tyr Harper knew. It comforted him. But then Tyr's behavior took another weird left turn as Tyr grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him in to rest against his side. What would Brendan say if he could see this? Harper tried to break free, but Tyr kept him in place.

He would not be soothed by Tyr's warm bulk. Tyr was only doing this to score points against Dylan anyway.

Tyr sat him down and settled next to him, then ran a few stroking fingers down the back of Harper's neck over and over. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Long, slow, and thorough. Like he was a pet or something. Felt weird, felt too good. Harper tried not to quiver under it. His breathing slowed in time to those strokes though.

The whole time he could sort of feel Tyr radiating thoughts at him, not like real telepathy but like Tyr knew where his thoughts might run. Tyr wanted him to remember that Tyr had lost all of his family too and been a slave. That they two actually had much more in common than Harper had with Dylan. That Dylan had once said that everything on the Andromeda _belonged_ to him, like property. The stroking was meant to put Harper in a more receptive, trance-like state.

Normally Harper might have played along with it a while longer just to screw with Tyr's head in exchange, but the knowledge that Tyr felt that Harper's actions on Earth had been very Nietzschean and proper made him less inclined. He stood in a rush, surprising Tyr. Which surprised him, because it almost looked like Tyr had entranced himself.

"I have to go," Harper said, then left quickly, not looking back.

But Beka, looking worried, waited at the door to his room, and seeing her made Harper's throat close up and eyes ache, undoing the false calm Tyr had put on him. She'd been there the first time he left Earth. She knew where he came from and seen some of it herself; she'd _saved_ him from having to go back to Earth and given him a home.... He clenched his teeth to try to hold it in and probably looked like he was snarling at her.

"Seamus," she said softly, then pulled him into a tight hug.

He lost it and started to shake a little against her. He would not cry. He _would not_ cry. He clenched his whole body up so he wouldn't.

"You can if you want to. I won't tell." She had her hand stroking against the back of his neck too, but her touch didn't demand anything of him.

"Won't," he gasped.

"I'm so sorry...."

The knots in his stomach probably resembled something Celtic in complexity by now. The larvae had been moving around more lately, and the stress of recent events hadn't helped. He wanted to forget. He wanted to forget everything. "Beka, I want the medicinal alcohol."

"That won't help." Her words vibrated against his scalp.

"It will."

"Seamus."

"Rebecca. Since I don't have all that much time, I think I should live a little."

She sighed. "All right."

When she moved away to get the bottle, Harper took advantage of her turned back to rub at his eyes and nose and try to piece his dignity back together. Yeah. Like he had any dignity. Right.

When he saw Beka reaching for a beer, he said, "No, gimme the harder stuff."

She frowned at him but took out a bottle of scotch for him anyway. He grabbed it from her and took a deep swig, feeling the fire burn its way down his throat and into his stomach. But when he looked at the bottle in his hand, it looked a lot like something they'd use for a Molotov cocktail. Molotovs still burn floaters, Brendan had said....

Beka pulled it away from him and sat down with him on his bed. He leaned against her shoulder and tried very seriously to be nothing for a while. No thoughts. No regrets.

He still had the tin whistle and the flexi clutched in one hand.

This wasn't working.

"Seamus."

"Yeah, Beka?"

"You're going to bed." Having no idea what the whistle or the flexi meant to him, when she took them from his hand and set them down on a nearby table, she still handled them like they might explode at any second. It made him smile a little. "Bed," she said.

"I'm in bed."

"You're going to take off your boots and belt, then get under the covers and go to sleep," she said in her Mom voice. She always denied that she had a Mom voice.

"No. I couldn't sleep. Hey!" She pushed him backward onto the bed and started unfastening his toolbelt. "Under different circumstances this would be my fantasy...."

"It'll go much easier on you if you don't fight me."

"Definitely one of my fantasies."

"Lift up."

"Beka!" But he did, and she took his belt off, then started on his boots.

"Stay."

Being fussed over always gave him conflicting feelings, especially when she did this when he was too drunk to do anything more than collapse facedown on his bunk, but it was nice to be taken care of sometimes, to feel loved. Now could be one of those times.

"Now you get under the covers." Sometime while she was taking off his boots, she'd removed her gun belt and boots.

He sat up straighter. "You're gonna be keeping me company?" Please?

"You got a problem with that?"

"No. Hell, no even. But, uh, your shirt, nice and kind of low-cut as it is... those buckles on the straps keeping your sleeves up could get really uncomfortable if you were lying on 'em. And I don't know what kind of... uh, support you could be wearing under that...."

She smirked. "Are you suggesting I go topless?"

"If I did, would you kill me?" When she stepped forward, full of mock menace, he said, "Hey, joke, joke. I'm not the one wearing the fetishy top. I was gonna say that you could borrow one of my shirts."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She went searching through his shirts with a thoroughness that made his mouth try to twitch into a smile despite everything. He said, "Jeez, you're just gonna be lying around sleeping in it. Under covers even."

"I'm particular." But she went with the funky, short-sleeved light blue one that had the small Chinese dragons embroidered over the two front pockets. That one was a bit tent-like on _him_.

Facing away from him, she slowly pulled off her own top, snarling when the straps on the sleeves got a little twisted up. Yeah, the support must have been built into the thing, because she had nothing but bare skin beneath it. Nice expanse of pale back she had.

That was the Harper sex drive for you, he could be grief-stricken with a ticking time bomb clutch of Magog babies in his stomach waiting to kill him and looking at a woman who was almost like a sister to him and still get turned on. Just from seeing her back. The sister thing gave his customary attraction to her a little sick twist that he kind of liked usually. Right now it felt really inappropriate. He breathed out when she put his shirt on.

When she finished buttoning the shirt, she turned around so he could see her, and he almost choked on a snort. "You have something to say?" she asked as she crossed her arms.

Okay, so Beka was trying to jolly him. He could play along. "That's either a really big short dress or a small tent."

"Now you go to bed."

"You ruined the mood with that shirt. This is just too kinky for me." But like a good little boy he got under the covers and scooted over as she joined him. It was much warmer with her lying beside him. He turned off the lights. "I'm still not going to be able to go to sleep."

Beka put a hand on his shoulder, warm and comforting and grounding. "Just close your eyes."

Everything but his stomach relaxed at her scent and the sound of her voice. The larvae gave him a vicious little kick that made him grunt. Her hand tightened down a little on his shoulder. He sucked in an acrid, burning shot of medicine from his nebulizer to stave them off.

She held him closer, and he rested his head against her chest, the soft cloth of his shirt soothing on his face until he leaned on a button. He heard and felt her stifle a laugh at his cursing. Eventually he got comfortable and drifted.

  


* * *

His stomach roiling and burning woke him up. Couldn't breathe and, damn, was his stomach really rolling around in his throat? He climbed over Beka, who grunted, and ran to the bathroom. Smart of him to move his bed closer, oh yeah.

He lost all the contents of his stomach--except the damned Magog larvae, of course--into the sink. Since he hadn't eaten anything on Earth or since he got back, it was mostly bile and acid coming up, which made the vomiting more agonizing than usual. It felt like he was spewing liquid fire. Fuck. Once his stomach and throat stopped clenching, he drank some water, then rested his forehead against the wall, which felt a hell of a lot cooler than his face.

He felt a gentle, cool hand on the back of his neck. "Seamus, what is this?"

He took a deep breath, looked at her, and gave her what was probably the sickliest smile _ever_. "Morning sickness."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Um. Since I started the medication. Not every day, though. We figure that my meds do this."

"We."

"Trance and me. She's our doctor, after all."

Beka looked annoyed but not very surprised that Trance hadn't told her about it. Harper said, "At least this is one secret she kept because I _asked_ her to."

"Dylan has to be told."

"He already knows." Harper squirmed under her stare. At least the squirming disguised the shakes he now had as the chills hit.

"Dylan knows?"

"He found out just about the same way you did. And I do sleep with him, Beka."

"You're going to med-bay." Not even the hilariously overlarge shirt undermined her authority.

"Trance can't do anything about it. I'll be fi--"

"You're going to med-bay."

Harper couldn't argue with the steel in her voice. "Yeah. But I can walk, okay?"

  


* * *

"I told you she couldn't do anything for me," Harper said as he sat on the examination table.

"I wish I could," Trance said. "Mixing Harper's medication with anything I know of to treat the nausea either causes worse side effects or cancels out his medication's ability to keep the larvae dormant."

Arms crossed, Beka paced, looking like she wished she had something she could hit, something she could do to help or change things. "Thanks for humoring me."

Harper's resignation levels tended to fluctuate. Early mornings like these, when he'd recently had a bout of vomiting that had just about turned him inside out, he really felt that he was going to die soon, that nobody would find a cure for him in time and his own efforts wouldn't work out. But he put on a smile for Beka. "Anything for you, boss."

Beka glared at Trance. Trance protested, "I'm working on it!"

Liar.

Dylan rushed in, out of breath, in the elegant dark blue uniform instead of the vinyl thing he'd worn during the Sabra-Jaguar/Earth disaster. "I heard--"

Once again, the Harper sex drive, ladies and gentlemen. He could be really pissed off at and hurt by Dylan but still want to pounce at the sight of him. Jump him, burrow against him. Just like one of those dogs drooling at the sound of a bell.

Right now, seeing Dylan made him want to cry and beg for a hug too.

He wasn't going to do any of that.

He tried not to let the worry on Dylan's face warm him too much, because he knew he could be bulldozed when he felt so sick and tired. Didn't mean he had to let Dylan think he was on his deathbed. "Just the usual stuff, nothing worse. Beka got worried, so I came down to med-bay to make her happy."

Dylan did a double take when he noticed Beka wearing one of Harper's shirts. She shot him a look back. "Contempt" might have been too strong a descriptive word for it, but the emotion on her face lived in contempt's neighborhood and maybe visited with the occasional casserole dish.

Harper felt the knot in his chest loosen a little. Beka had his back.

Trance ignored the tension in the room. "I've done as much as I can. You can go, if you'd like."

"Actually," Dylan said, "I was wondering if I could speak with Harper alone here."

Beka raised an eyebrow, but Harper nodded his head that she could go, he'd be okay. Things needed to be said, and it would be better done in private. She nodded back, her I'll-kill-him-if-he-hurts-you expression intact, and left.

Harper and Dylan stared at Trance, who stood there seemingly oblivious. "Oh," she finally said. "I'll... I'll be in hydroponics. I'm going."

Alone at last. Harper remained seated on the examination table, since he didn't know how well his legs would hold up. He wanted a drink of water, to clear the acidic-metallic taste from his mouth, but he'd have to stand to get it, so no. Dylan stood so close that Harper could feel his warmth.

Looking solemn and worried, Dylan reached out like he wanted to touch Harper's face, then pulled back like he didn't know if he had the right. "I can't apologize for a military decision. I tried to get there in time, but it was physically impossible. Sometimes things don't work out the way we planned."

"You think?"

"But I'm beginning to think that maybe I didn't express my sympathies in a way that actually helped you."

"Millions are dead because I told people you'd be there." Dylan winced a little, which made Harper feel a little better. "I don't know how many more people will be killed or enslaved by the Dragans as vengeance for the uprising. The thought that my actions may have made more worlds rebel the same way.... Dylan, your 'comforting' let me know that I have more blood on my hands. That we can't even start to add up the number of people who will die because I opened my big mouth."

That put Dylan's "earnest" manner in full swing. "That's war. Harper, you inspired them, but they made their own decisions."

"Do you really think you were the first person who suggested fighting for our freedom? Do you think Terrans are that frigging stupid? It's been tried. Many, many times for hundreds of years. I had my own rebel days taking on the Nietzscheans. It always fails, and people get slaughtered. We're too beat down, too poor, too few. Nobody cares about Earth, as Rommie bluntly said. Nobody. We have no strategic value. The Nietzscheans raped the planet of anything of worth. No one will help us. I'm used to that. I should have known that help wouldn't come."

"I promised," Dylan said quietly. "You're accustomed to thinking that means something."

"I should have known better. I will, in the future. I broke promises I made _to myself_ believing in yours."

"I--"

"Brendan's _dead_. He was the only blood family I had left. I want to believe he's still alive, but it doesn't look likely. Doing what we did, we killed him. And it's not just him! We made things worse for everybody! Why did you put Earth on such a tight timetable? 'No plan survives the first engagement' is something Rommie quoted me from the Wit and Wisdom of Captain Dylan Hunt. If you didn't really give a damn, why did you even bother?"

"Because you cared about it!" Dylan sounded frustrated, hurt.

Good. "And that's why there's nothing you can say that'll comfort me. Because I went down there in my new clothes, well-fed and healthy to their eyes since they couldn't know about the Magog larvae, and told them they'd be free if they risked their miserable lives. Maybe I didn't have the same smug look on my face as _you_ did when you said they should fight--"

Dylan just about blazed with anger and indignation. "What?"

"But I told them to fight, watched them bleed, then _left_ all the same." The words had taken on their own momentum and couldn't be stopped. "I don't think it'll make a difference to my dead if I cry like a heartbroken five-year-old that my lover _promised_ to help them and that it hurts me like hell that he couldn't keep it. Or that Brendan made me remember like it was yesterday that if my parents had just let the fucking slavers take me away, they wouldn't have been killed."

God, he felt malignant, venomous, and it was such a rush. He felt almost high with his lifetime of bitterness gushing out like this, hitting Dylan in so many different places that Dylan didn't have a chance of formulating a strategy for defense or offense.

"You're sorry things turned out the way they did. I get that," Harper said. "But your being sorry means about as much as me being sorry about my parents." Done, he slid off the examination table and left at fast walk while Dylan was still stunned. But at the door he couldn't help saying, "And what the _fuck_ was up with the vinyl track suit you were wearing?"

He always tried to exit on a high note.

  


* * *

But the malicious high faded fast, and coming down was a bitch. Sick and stunned by how much he'd revealed, Harper tried to lose himself in work, but he couldn't concentrate and it nagged at him. He'd only wanted Dylan to understand how he felt. He hadn't wanted to rip to Dylan to shreds while also handing him all the keys to his twisted, miserable psyche. Why the hell had he mentioned his parents?

He preferred anger to embarrassment, he really did. It was more productive.

He'd have to avoid Dylan for a while.

Beka walked into machine shop 17. She'd changed out of his shirt into something from her array of black and formfitting, this time with straps that went up to and circled her neck. "I thought I'd have to protect _you_."

Oh, damn. "How bad is it?"

Beka looked torn. "He looks really lost. Like his heart's been ripped out."

Harper closed his eyes. "Shit."

"Rev sent a message too."

"Where has he _been_?" Rev hadn't been right since the Worldship. It left Harper concerned and scared. Scared for him and of him. It also made him feel guilty that he'd been sort of relieved that Rev had been spending so much time away since then.

"I don't know." Beka sounded worried. "The transmission was red-flagged. Everybody's supposed to go the bridge to take a look at it."

  


* * *

As they stood on the bridge watching the message, Harper felt angry and sad and angry. Rev had lost his faith, but apparently didn't think that any of them could help. Dark path I have to take, I feel lost, don't know if I can ever come back, blah blah blah guiltcakes. Harper glanced at Beka, who had her I-can't-react-to-this-publicly face on, the concentrating-and-slightly-concerned-yet-blank edition. She'd known Rev longer than he had.

He'd trusted Rev to help with his cure, trusted Rev's promises. At least he was consistently stupid.

And Dylan did look lost, sitting there with an expression that sort of said that he hoped today really was the worst day of his life but he had a feeling that there would be plenty of upcoming contenders. Harper wanted to give him a hug, but it wouldn't be a good idea in public and when he was this pissed over Rev.

They had to go get Rev, knock some sense into him, and bring him back. Rev wasn't in his right mind. It wasn't safe for anybody, Rev included, to have a depressed Magog wandering the universe.

"'The darkest places'? I don't like the sound of that," Trance said.

Thank you. "Me neither. I say we track him down and drag him back here whether he wants to come or not."

But Tyr said, "He's a free... being. He's made his will known."

"Besides, even if we wanted to find him, where would we look?" Et tu, Beka?

Dylan still looked lost and depressed, but of course he said, "Rev Bem can take care of himself, and if he wants time alone I say we give it to him."

Thanks, everybody. "Yeah, easy for you to say," Harper said before he stormed off the bridge.

Trance had promised to help find a cure and done jack squat. Rev had promised and done the same. Did a promise mean anything to anyone but him? Well, Beka fought to keep her promises, but she hadn't promised him anything here and didn't have the expertise to help with this one.

It was all up to Harper to save his own ass, even though he was an engineer, not a doctor. Damn, he could be on his deathbed and he'd probably have to direct the action. So he went off to machine shop 17 to do some more work on the only cure possibility he had going.

Not too much later he heard the door open and "Harper. Harper, are you in here?" Dylan.

"No!" he shouted back even if it did make him sound like a five-year-old. He wasn't really ready to have another heart to heart with Dylan, especially not when he wasn't certain if Dylan had a heart anymore.

Dylan approached with concern and, okay, love on his face. Dammit. "Look, I know you're upset, but if Rev has to take off--"

Harper couldn't be close to Dylan right now, so he turned his back and walked away as he spoke. "Rev promised me he'd find a way to get these Magog parasites out of me before they kill me." Small wince from Dylan. Inadvertent score. Well, Dylan wanted to know, so Harper had to tell him. "He made me a promise--" Agony in his gut and up his ribs, squirming, tearing. It doubled him over. He could swear he heard the little monster babies chittering....

And Dylan was there with guiding, fluttering hands and a slightly panicked voice. "Sit!" Harper sat on the cot and tried to breathe. "C'mon, take your medicine." Pain! "C'mon!" Dylan actually put the nebulizer to his lips for him.

Harper sucked in a deep, acrid breath of medicine, but it did absolutely nothing to stop the squirming and tearing. "It's not working." He'd thought he had more time. Couldn't think, couldn't sit up, starting to topple over....

Dylan helped him lie down, gentle hands guiding him to a gentle landing. Dylan was murmuring something like "sit" or "no" or something. Harper couldn't see or hear Dylan very well, not with the weird, fuzzy vision he was getting of himself, hanging onto or clutching something, and somebody begging him not to let go, please don't let go. The other him said, "Hang on, I've got ya!" while the other voice pleaded for help. Then the hallucination faded and an attack of the shakes started, to go along with the ripping.

"Code red. Medical emergency! Machine shop 17!" Dylan shouted.

It hurt, fuck, it hurt so bad, and he helplessly moved along with the roiling in his gut. He closed his eyes, enduring it and hanging on out of habit.

"Dylan, what's going on down there?" Rommie asked.

"The Magog larvae in Harper's stomach... they're starting to hatch." Panicked, horrified, anguished. More quietly, Dylan said, "C'mon, Harper."

Passing out felt like a mercy.

  


* * *

Damn, he was still here? His eyelids felt too heavy. But at least all was quiet on the stomach front, though he ached like someone had beaten the crap out of him. He heard something from Trance about being stabilized for now, but the larvae weren't responding to the medication anymore. Mumble from Dylan.

Trance said, "He has a week at most and then they're going to hatch."

"That is just great," Dylan answered, sounding almost bitter. Giving up?

Look at him, he _was_ on his deathbed, and he _still_ had to help them find their asses. By sheer force of will, Harper opened his eyes and said, "Sinti." He was in med-bay now.

"Harper?" Beka asked, suddenly near his bed. This Valentine kept her promises.

It gave him strength. He turned to Dylan and said, emphatically, "_Sinti_."

And, eureka, the light bulb turned on over Dylan's head. He just about lit up at the chance to _do_ something. "The Perseids. Of course. If anyone can help Harper, it's them. Beka--"

"I'm on my way."

Okay, this was a good start, but he had so much he had to do. Harper struggled to sit up. "I should--"

Dylan put a gently restraining hand on his shoulder. "You should rest, save your energy."

For what? He only had a week left. He caught Dylan with his eyes, putting all the force he could behind his gaze and voice. "The Magog larvae... what--whatever happens--"

"Don't worry, Harper. I won't let them hatch," Dylan said quietly, somberly.

When you reached a point where it was good news if somebody swore to shoot you dead after you begged him to, your life really was shit. But he'd gotten a lot done in a few minutes for a guy who was mostly dead, so maybe he deserved a little rest. He closed his eyes.

  


* * *

As soon as he regained some strength, Harper went back to machine shop 17 to work on his possible cure. He had no reason or time to lounge around and wait for the Perseids to arrive.

Of course Trance flounced in, the very image of cuteness, and tried to convince him to rest. As his doctor, she said.

Turning his back to her to reinforce his go-away, Harper answered, "You never went to medical school, so you are not a regular doctor."

"Lucky for you I'm not a regular doctor, because if I were you would have been dead months ago."

Don't ever trust that surface layer of cuteness. It was only skin-deep, if that. "All right. Maybe. Maybe. But I got less than a week to live, and I'd like to spend every second on finding a cure. Okay?" He could sleep when he was dead. Why didn't people get that? "And where's that damned nano-manipulator?"

Trance held it up with a big grin. "Thanks," he said, and she nodded. Okay, so she hadn't bothered to work on a permanent cure, but she had given him a few more months of life, and trust was a hard habit to break, and he'd be dead in a week, so why not bury the hatchet? His grudge wouldn't matter either way soon enough. "Hey, look, uh, thanks for everything, you know?" She beamed. Sometimes it didn't take much to make people happy. Speaking of which.... "And if you don't mind I could use a little peace and quiet."

As she left, the larvae tore at him again, making him hiss and crumple a little from the pain. Trance immediately turned around, so he straightened as quickly as he could and put his best innocent face on. She'd never leave him alone otherwise. She came back to him and kissed him on the cheek, her lips warm and surprising. Then she left.

Him and his nano-manipulator, alone at last. "Engineer, heal thyself." But his cheek tingled a little, pleasantly. He put his hand to it, then kissed his fingers, swearing that he could almost taste something purple and sparkly. If only being nice got him kisses all the time.

Yeah, sometimes it didn't take much to make the Harper happy. And being easily pleased was better than the alternative.

  


* * *

Things went faster once Höhne and his assistant arrived. Assembly, concepts... they bounced ideas and possibilities off one another. Total happy geek fest.

Rommie looked very unhappy. Of course, with that blue wig or whatever it was she had on, she looked kind of silly too. It probably denoted something significant in the android's personal development as a possibly separate being that she was making herself look different than Motherboard Rommie and Hologram Rommie, and Harper wished like hell he had the time to investigate it.

Arms crossed, radiating disapproval, she said, "Harper, are you sure this is wise? You barely understand the technology. If it doesn't work--"

"I know, I know. It'll twist me into an abstract painting." He really couldn't resist demonstrating with some machine parts and one leg twisted around a bit. Dylan loved how flexible he was. Don't think about Dylan. "'Harper, Descending Staircase.'" Hey, it was laugh or cry.

Höhne apparently found the spectacle he made funny, since he chuckled. Höhne was cool.

Rommie's disapproval radiation stepped up a notch. "Okay, this isn't a joke." She disapproved because she loved.

"But the way I see it, Rommie, I have nothing to lose."

She had no answer to that.

  


* * *

Despite the life and death, his death, situation, Harper enjoyed having the Perseids helping him. Yeah, they were weird and giggled in _really_ disturbing ways, but he could mention an idea of his to Höhne and watch it start a fire in the Perseid's eyes as he saw the possibilities. Then Höhne would riff off the idea.... It was fun and exciting talking and collaborating like this. Höhne even liked Harper's jokes, which was great as long as he chuckled in reaction instead of giggled. Or was that a titter Höhne and Rekeeb did?

Of course, everything soon went horribly wrong, starting with Tyr showing up at the machine shop, grabbing Harper by the scruff of his neck, and demanding to know what he'd done. Since Tyr looked like he'd just come out of the bathroom or something and said he'd gone through the doorway expecting his bedroom to be on the other side. Oh, yeah, Tyr, his fantasy was to be able to transport a pissed off Nietzschean right to him for his evil whims.

The next thing they found on the other side of that doorway was open space. Nothing like almost being sucked out into space to enliven your day. Harper managed to save Rekeeb from sliding out, getting a major déjà vu moment, while Tyr deliberately let go so he could pull Höhne inside and shut the door. Sure, it looked like Tyr had risked his life to save Höhne's, but he probably just wanted to get the doorway clear so he could close it. The punchline? Machine shop 17 was at least 50 meters away from the ship's hull, so the whole thing was impossible.

Of _course_ Harper's machine was spindling and mutilating time and space even before he finished it. Or, rather, after he finished and used it in the future. Which was also how he'd seen himself saving Rekeeb from being sucked out into space long before it happened.

He hoped it didn't do too much damage to people, but from the way he, Tyr, Höhne, and Rekeeb were being 'ported around the ship at random, at one point threatened by some confused High Guard officers from 300 years ago, he got the feeling that damage was being done. They had to get to the machine somehow. If they could find the damned machine shop.

All the while, he felt the spawn kicking up a storm, probably partying in response to his stress, getting ready for the Grand Opening. Maybe he would have lasted a week before all this, but he got the feeling that he was hitting the end of his road faster now.

Then he lost Höhne after they were literally dropped into the engine room. If Rekeeb had helped him pull Höhne up instead of whimpering and cringing, maybe they could have saved him. But Rekeeb didn't, and it was Harper with the railing pressing into his ribs and guts and his arm being pulled off, trying to get Höhne up onto the catwalk. Subjective time had slowed as Höhne's hand slipped off Harper's shoulder, then slid out of his grip.... Even as he went flying half over the railing himself, he could see the terror and confusion on Höhne's face as he dropped and hit and bounced....

His machine's doing, so his doing. Höhne wouldn't have even been here if he hadn't called for help.

Grief and guilt later.

It was all happening so quickly and so slowly at the same time. Sudden moments of extreme peril punctuated long stretches of boring crawling through tubes. Harper was a mess and trying to keep himself together in front of Rekeeb. He felt so _tired_. Tired of hurting, tired of fighting, tired of being devoured by his own bitterness as much as by the monster babies waiting like time bombs inside his body.

After more crawling through tubes and fighting visitors from out of time, Rekeeb panicking all the damned way, he and Rekeeb met up with Beka and, uhm, Trance. Kind of. Scary, hard future Trance, in weapons, tight leather, and a pale gold skin with red highlights, not his purple pixie anymore. Beka didn't look any more enthused about her than he felt. And how much did it suck that when Beka told him she'd been worried about him and given him a great warm hug, he'd been worrying that she could feel the larvae squirming just under his skin? She hadn't seemed to, thank Whomever.

_Finally_ they found machine shop 17 and found Dylan and Rommie with it. The machine was done, seeming almost to wait expectantly. Dylan was all "c'mon, use it," and Harper wanted to save his own life, but.... If they used the machine to try to cure him, Höhne would stay wrongfully dead. If they destroyed the machine, making sure it couldn't ever be turned on, Höhne would live and scary Trance would be replaced again by cute, purple, but still Machiavellian Trance. Höhne could live though, and he sure as hell deserved to.

All Harper had to do was destroy his only chance at a cure.

It'd be easier to think if he didn't have the larvae pounding his gut and the blood pounding in his head. He felt like he had his thoughts in a spin cycle.

Rommie didn't sound happy at all about what destroying the machine meant. Good her. She'd been nice to him during the disaster on Earth. Even her threatening to break his legs and carry him to the Maru if he didn't leave Earth with her of his own will had only been because she cared.

But Rekeeb got tired of listening to them debate it and took matters into his own hands by threatening them with the gun Harper had given him to defend himself against attackers, _not_ hold the crew hostage. He wanted to destroy the machine to bring Höhne back, which Harper sure understood.

Tyr and a Magog attack stopped the standoff by distracting Rekeeb and letting Dylan disarm him. Wow, imagine him being happy to see Magog. With every single one of them, except Rekeeb, shooting through a partly closed doorway, they didn't face much danger really, so the whole thing felt more cathartic than anything else. Once the door closed the remaining Magog out, it was decision time all over again.

Damn, the day was just packed, which was all right since the deep tearing in his gut told him that he maybe had minutes left to live.

"So, Mr. Harper, what do you want to do about the machine?" Dylan asked, putting the decision in his hands. What a time for Dylan to remember that he didn't like other people deciding his fate for him.

"I don't know. Maybe... maybe Rekeeb was right. I mean, I'm just a good-looking, young, brilliant engineer. Höhne... Höhne's a genius. I mean, if it's him or me, he's the one that really matters." He liked the wacky Perseid, who was dead because of him. How many times did you get a chance to fix things like this?

"Don't say that," Beka said immediately. Beka, his backup.

Right sentiment from her, but it made no difference. "No, it's true, Beka. I mean, he was one of a kind, he was the first one to commit to your new Commonwealth." That one directed to Dylan, who looked like he was concentrating so hard that he should be able to make everything right through sheer force of will. If only that worked. "He was my friend. I can't choose my life over his." This wouldn't set Earth right, but maybe it would pay for it. Just a little. Harper powered up his gun and aimed it at the machine. His baby, his cure, his ticket to life and health, Höhne's death, mass destruction, power too frightening to be used. The larvae squirmed inside him in sadistic enjoyment of his pain and horror at the choice that he had to make. "Let's destroy it... before I change my mind."

"Harper." Dylan's voice was quiet but intense, and his eyes said, "please don't do this." "If we destroy the machine, you know what I'm gonna have to do." Keep his last promise. He was asking Harper not to make it necessary.

Then why had Dylan thrown this in his lap to begin with?

"What _someone_ will have to do," Tyr suddenly said. Harper had almost forgotten Tyr was there. Tyr looked... emotional, upset. "I made him a promise. I'll keep it."

Oh yeah, everybody will keep the promises that involved killing him. Still, Tyr. It sounded like Tyr would regret having to kill him. "Thanks. Just try not to enjoy it, okay?" Did he imagine the flash of hurt in Tyr's eyes as he turned back to face the machine again?

Time to put up or shut up. Go out on a high, noble note. Exorcise his lifetime of survivor's guilt in the only way that really worked.

And wasn't that great. Nothing could brighten his day more than having a flash of personal insight right before he pretty much killed himself.

But as he aimed his gun, a sudden blue-edged yellow light blinded him. It picked him up and hit him, tearing through and around and into him. It _hurt_, raw and strange, and--

  


* * *

"Seamus, rise and shine."

Beka? Harper opened his eyes to see her leaning over him. How many lives did he have left now? Pain, a familiar resident, made him groan and put his hand over his gut. "Oh, my aches ache."

"Just be glad you're around to feel it."

Hunh? No. No way. "The larvae?"

"Gone," Rommie said. "Thanks to Trance."

She'd taken the decision out of his hands and saved him. "Yeah, at the cost of Höhne's life."

"What's done is done." Beka didn't sound too sorry, but she hadn't known Höhne as anything more than another annoying Perseid. And she was more practical than Harper was. Always had been.

"Yeah?" Harper answered. "I'm not so sure anymore." God, what _was_ he going to do with the machine?

But even Beka wasn't as practical as Rommie was. "The important thing is, Harper, you're alive. As for the cost, there's no way to change that. All you can do is earn it."

Harper pulled his nebulizer on its thong over his head and stared at it. Months of keeping this thing close, sucking on it for dear life. Done now. And it was so small, almost pretty looking, and could pass as a pendant. Its metal pressed painfully into his clenching fingers. He never wanted to see it again. He wanted to chuck it or melt it down for scrap.

But he put it in his pocket instead, weirdly afraid to destroy it. The nebulizer, source of life, had been a kind of talisman for too long.

His eyelids felt like they had weights on them. Damn, he was tired. Except for the absence of occasional moments of extreme inner ripping and squirming, he didn't feel much different than his previous usual.

"You can go back to sleep," Beka said. "You had a rough day."

"I'd rather do it in my room."

As he walked out, Rommie put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed just a little in comfort and support. He smiled weakly at her.

Beka followed him to his room, silently companionable. Once he opened the door, she hugged him. "I'm so glad...." she said, choking up a little.

Harper hugged back fiercely, milking every moment. He wouldn't get as much of this once the scare of his dead man walking days faded. Better enjoy it now.

"Good night, Seamus."

"'Night, Beka."

He just about tumbled into sleep as soon as he hit the bed.

  


* * *

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Dylan sitting nearby, watching him. Dylan said, "I couldn't be there the first time you woke up, but I could do the second. I had to talk to the Sinti government." About Höhne. "And Trance."

Yeah, Trance. The new Trance scared Harper, as if more than the purple had been stripped off her. She lacked that veneer of soft sweetness the old one had layered over her superiority and ruthlessness as a cushion. All that remained was hard and unyielding.

Dylan continued, "She said that she saved you because Höhne was a stranger but you were her friend."

"Yeah, and I'm sure the fact that destroying the machine would send her back where she came from had nothing to do with it."

Dylan's mouth twisted. "I never said I trusted her."

Harper sat up and faced Dylan. He swung his legs a little, nervously. "Dylan...."

"I wasn't sure if you'd want to see me."

Amazing the difference almost dying could make. The old problems still mattered and had to be addressed, but he didn't have to give Dylan the cold shoulder. Besides, he was tired of being unhappy all the time. Would it be so wrong just to forget it all for a while? He was alive and horny and desperate to be touched. He wanted to feel good for a change; he wanted someone to make him feel good. The problems and his grudges would still be there when he had the strength to pick them up again.

"I love you," Harper said.

Eyes glittering suddenly, Dylan bit his lip, then crouched beside the bed and hugged Harper almost desperately, punctuating it with kisses. "I almost lost you," Dylan said softly, his voice almost breaking, stating the obvious, but sometimes that was all you could do.

"I'm here, and if I have my way I'm not going anywhere. I _want_ to see you at my bedside."

Dylan's hands felt so good, so right, moving along his back, especially once he put them under Harper's shirt and along bare skin. Dylan smelled vaguely of sweat, panic, and force lance discharge, and it was _fine_, it was life. Desire streaking through him, hard, he pulled Dylan close and pressed his knees and thighs closer to Dylan's sides, trying to let Dylan damn well feel how much he wanted him at his bedside.

They rocked against one another, making Harper feel drugged and almost dreamy from the contact. Meanwhile, Dylan seemed intent on kissing every bit of his face slowly and thoroughly and with an intensity behind it that suggested desperation. Dylan's hands mapping his back made him want skin of his own to touch, so he quickly unsnapped Dylan's uniform jacket with a skill that came from practice. Which still didn't get him skin because of all the damned layers. Dylan wore way too much uniform.

But Dylan was working on that, pulling off his jacket and shirt. Harper took off his own shirt and started to unfasten his pants, but Dylan pushed his hands away and started to tonguefuck his navel, God, using the formerly forbidden zone of his stomach, now empty of threat but fetishized. For Harper at least, though Dylan's avid attention suggested that it wasn't one-sided. Every stab of Dylan's tongue seemed to go straight to his cock, and the feel of Dylan's hair rubbing at his skin drove him crazy. Missed this, wanted this, needed it _now_....

"Fuck me, Dylan," Harper gasped, and saying the words intensified his lust. Kisses again, hot and fervent, and this time Dylan's unsteady hands unfastened his pants for him at the same time.

Suddenly he was lying on the bed. "Yes. Lift," Dylan said, sounding hoarse. Harper did and sighed in relief as his pants came off. Then he had Dylan on top of him, kissing, stroking; a feast of heat and firm body. Somebody touching him out of lust instead of sympathy or pity. Dylan still had his uniform pants on, but open at the fly and pulled down a bit, his cock jutting out, impatient and sexy.

"Now," said Harper, all the parts of his brain that usually formulated his longer sentences occupied with other things. "Need it now. Leave the pants on."

Eyes hot and dark, Dylan smiled and slicked his cock in long strokes, the sight of which just about put Harper into overload. "Just give it to me," Harper groaned.

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

Harper hissed at the burn and press of Dylan's motion in. Too slow, not enough. He rolled them over until he was on top and pushed down until he couldn't go any further. Better, so much better. He braced his hands on Dylan's chest and drank in the dazed and amazed look on Dylan's face.

"Oh," Dylan said, and then started to thrust.

Harper moved until he had himself positioned exactly the way that he needed to get Dylan's cock stroking his sweet spot almost every time. Riding the waves of pleasure, for the first time in forever devoting his whole self to the sex instead of having the back of his mind worry about his gut exploding, Harper stroked Dylan's slick skin with one hand and himself with the other. From the look on his face, Dylan was lost too, watching him, his hands clenching on Harper's hips hard enough to bruise, perfect.

"Harper," Dylan gasped.

That and a twist of Harper's fingers had him coming all over Dylan's chest, releasing what felt like months of tension. _Alive_, dammit. He clenched down hard on Dylan's cock and groaned as Dylan cried out and thrust hard a few more times as he hit orgasm.

If you had to ache, what better way to do it?

That was pretty much the last conscious thought he had for a while.

  


* * *

Harper woke up with Dylan lying behind him, the two of them pressed close together in his too narrow bed. He stretched and smiled at the "got some" twinges he felt in his body. "Hi, Dylan."

"It scared the hell out of me when you went out like that." Dylan sounded rueful. "I kept checking to see if you were breathing."

"You're not big enough to kill me, Dylan." When Dylan's arm around him clenched tighter in response, Harper said, "I'm fine. It was just a combination of having a hard day, being tired, and having really good sex."

"I'm amazed you can joke."

"It's _me_, Dylan. You have talked to me before, right?"

"You almost died. And Rommie told me that you didn't seem very happy to be alive when you woke up."

That would explain Dylan being weird now. Harper couldn't let him keep thinking things like that. "Because of Höhne. I'm actually very happy to be alive. I'd just be happier about it if me getting cured hadn't meant that Höhne had to stay dead. You don't have to start a suicide watch."

"You're worth at least as much as Höhne."

"I, one good-looking engineer--"

"Good-looking, brilliant engineer."

"--one good-looking, brilliant engineer with a captain who's buttering him up, am worth as much as the Perseids' most treasured diplomat and most brilliant scientist?"

"At least." Dylan clutched him tighter. "When I gave you the decision on whether to use the machine, I didn't think you'd decide to destroy it to save Höhne." Before Harper could snap something back, Dylan said, "I don't know if I would have been able to make your choice if I'd been in your place. That whole bit about making sure you knew that I'd have to kill you as you'd asked me to was me trying to talk you out of destroying the machine." Dylan sighed. "I'm not entirely proud of myself that I might have tried to stop you from shooting."

Wow. That was... wow. "I have moments when I'm glad Trance took my decision out of my hands. But it still means that somebody else died to save my worthless ass."

"I'm sorry about Höhne."

An "I'm sorry" right out. It was good to hear. "Yeah. Thanks. I tried so hard to save him, but he... just slid right out of my hand. I almost went over the railing right after him." Harper shook his head and snuggled closer. "Could we talk about something else or sleep? I got a nice buzz going right now."

"Sleep would be fine."

  


* * *

Harper muzzily opened his eyes, feeling somebody watch him. "Dylan?"

Dylan stopped whatever he'd been doing with his fingers along Harper's stomach. "It's fine. You can go back to sleep."

Dream, then. "'Kay."

Harper half-woke again sometime later when Dylan got out of bed. He sighed at Dylan's hand on his hair. "Going?"

"Have to. You can--"

"Mmm. Go back to sleep? Good idea. Go back to sleep with me."

"Can't."

Harper snuggled back into his pillow. "'Kay."

  


* * *

Harper woke up gently, gradually, feeling very peaceful and rested. Nice change. Maybe this would be a good day. He reached for his nebulizer...

...and only then remembered that he didn't need it anymore. He'd been cured, freed. It still hadn't hit him yet. He had this weird feeling of vertigo at the thought that the Magoglets were gone. Too big a part of him had been certain for too long that he'd have them inside him until they killed him. That he wouldn't survive.

He shook a little for a while, then said, "This is _stupid_. Be fucking happy about surviving."

Really. He was alive, he was well-fucked, he was lounging in a bed that still smelled of Dylan and sex... and he was late. That couldn't be the time. He'd told Dylan not to let him sleep.

Oh, wait, Dylan had talked to him this morning, and he'd agreed to go back to sleep. Loophole. Sneaky bastard.

He hopped into the shower, sang a little too, though it was an "I'm late" song. Breakfast tasted so much better this morning. Amazingly better. He had to stop stuffing his face, because he was _full_ no matter how good everything tasted. When he'd first joined up as Maru crew, Beka had been forced to intervene to stop him from eating himself to death.

Then he realized that his tongue didn't burn and he didn't have that hot metal taste in his mouth anymore. After the first few days of living through it, he'd stopped noticing. He hadn't even realized he'd had a horrible taste in his mouth for months until right now, after it had stopped. No more monster babies meant no more meds, and no more meds meant no more side effects.

_Good_ morning.

Out in the hallway on his way to the day's repair job--he loved to fix broken things, making them right again, he really did--he met up with Beka, who wore his dragon shirt, unbuttoned and open, over a tight, black, long-sleeved top. "Looks good on ya," Harper said.

She smirked. "Thanks. I'm thinking of keeping it."

"Bitch."

"You have that freshly-fucked glow to you. The freshly-fucked walk too."

Harper gave her a one-finger salute. "Someday, when _you_ get a boyfriend, you'll understand."

"Oooh, burn."

"You know it, baby."

Beka smiled. "No really. You look good."

"I feel pretty good. I think I'll feel even better soon. I can get used to this."

  


* * *

Coming back from lunch, Harper saw Tyr in the hallway and connected up with him. The last time he'd tried to thank Tyr for something Tyr had nearly bitten his head off, but he had to do this. "Hey, Tyr... I wanted to thank you for being willing to keep that promise. It means a lot to me."

"I still can't believe that your mad urge to sacrifice your life to save a Perseid who was already dead nearly made it necessary to keep that promise," Tyr growled.

Ah, sweet normality. "Stop that, Tyr. I'm choking up here." Oh yeah, Tyr was a big teddy bear under all the bluster. A big teddy bear with sharp bone spurs and arms that could crush you, but still. Harper coughed to clear the smirk from his face and hopefully the thought from his head. Nope. Still there.

"I see that you and Dylan have... reconnected." Deserts should be so dry.

Harper really hoped that Tyr had discovered it from his walk and not from Tyr smelling him or something. "Yeah, well, life's too short."

"I'm sorry to inform you that you'll be doing without him for a few days. The two of us will be leaving in search of an arms dealer in a few hours."

"Oh." That was kind of weird. But they needed stuff. Hell, Harper should ask him to pick up more parts while he was out there. He noticed Tyr drinking in his expression. Show no weakness. "I'll give him my own shopping list."

"I'm sure."

"Are you speculating on our sex life?"

"I wouldn't dream of it. Truly." The sly smile flickered by so quickly that Harper wondered if he'd hallucinated it. "But the arms come first."

"Arms don't do us much good if we can't make the ship go."

"Perhaps you have a point."

"'Perhaps'? Ha."

"I trust in your skills to cannibalize what we have and turn it into something we can use."

Sounded like a compliment. "Yeah, but making do leaves us with microscopic stresses. You understand microscopic stresses, right?"

"I could see microscopic stresses if I so wished."

"You are so full of shit."

"Perhaps."

"Well, you'll be happy to know that I'll be working on fire control while you guys are gone."

"Are you flirting with me?"

Harper snorted. "You are a strange, strange man, Tyr Anasazi."

"Perhaps." Tyr reached out quickly and stroked the back of Harper's neck with a feather light touch that gave him the shivers, then calmly walked away while Harper stood there gaping.

"I have to stop letting him mess with my head like this," Harper finally said when he recovered.

  


* * *

When Dylan crawled into the access tube and sat down, Harper handed him a flexi and kept on tweaking fire control. "What's this?" Dylan asked.

"My wish list for your shopping party. I may be the cannibalizer supreme, but even I would appreciate some parts that are actually designed to do what I'm trying to make them do." Seeing Dylan's look, Harper said, "Tyr told me about your quest for guns."

"I came by to tell you. We'll probably be gone for a few days." Dylan sounded rueful. "Recent events have underscored how badly we need to restock our supply of armaments."

"I totally get that." Even if just seeing Dylan gave him the urge to pounce. His dirty mind had an endless array of possible ways to stop Dylan from ever trying or wanting to leave again. He'd thought he was horny _before_ his cure?

"You have to stop looking at me like that," Dylan said with a small smile.

"Like what?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

"Like I want to lick you all over? Like I want to fuck you until you don't remember your own name?"

Dylan's voice sounded deeper as he said, "Exactly."

"Then I'll stop looking at you." It didn't take much effort to get into Dylan's lap, and he closed his eyes for the kiss. Keeping his word. He could feel Dylan get harder against him.

"Harper, we're on duty and in an access tunnel." But Dylan had a "convince me" tone to his voice during that sentence and his tongue in Harper's mouth after it.

"I want a goodbye. You'll be gone for days. It could be a quick goodbye."

Harper unfastened Dylan's pants and reached in. It definitely felt like Dylan wanted a goodbye too. There you go. He pulled all of the clothing aside and nuzzled, then slid his mouth down the hard length of Dylan's cock, purring at the twitching weight along his tongue, smiling and getting harder at the needy sounds his purr had pulled from Dylan. A quickie would be less guilt inducing for a certain somebody, so he nibbled and sucked and worked it hard, trying not to drool too much. He worked here and didn't want to have to clean any more than he had to. Practicality. Beka would be proud.

It turned him on that Dylan was trying to be so careful with his hands in Harper's hair, combing instead of gripping and pulling. The combing didn't bother Harper at all since Dylan combed it up, into higher spikes. Having his hips pinned seemed to do interesting things to Dylan's lust, making him wilder but also making him have to try harder not to be wild. Playing with his control freak tendencies could be a hell of a lot of fun.

Surprisingly, the press of his thumbs into certain places on Dylan's hips seemed to push Dylan into coming. Harper had to remember that.

Liking the debauched sprawl Dylan had going, Harper draped himself along Dylan's side and kissed him. "So, where's _my_ goodbye?" Harper asked.

Dylan, looking a bit dazed, licked his lips and said nothing.

"That better be a joke," Harper said. "You don't want to see what sexual desperation might inspire me to do with you while you're in my clutches and territory. I can be a really evil guy. Cranky too--"

Dylan rolled them so he would be on top and stopped Harper's tirade with a deep kiss and unfastening fingers at his fly. Which was the best way, really. But Dylan's silence worried him. Dylan may not have been as motormouthed as Harper--a blessing, since the two of them talking over one another all the time would be pretty sad--but he joked and said things sometimes. At least he used to.

Harper didn't know. Maybe he was being oversensitive. Maybe Dylan was bothered by how recently Harper had nearly died, which was more than understandable, especially since it still upset Harper in between the bouts of euphoria that came from physically feeling so much better. Sure, Harper had almost died many times before this, but those times had all been quick, momentary scares, not months of living under a death sentence. Yeah, living on Earth had been a terminal sentence too, but not with such an immediate expiration date as the larvae had given him.

Dylan's slick hand fisting Harper's cock, a shock of pleasure, brought his attention back to real time. "Am I boring you?" Dylan asked.

Relief, warm and golden, just about thrummed through Harper's entire body. Snark was love. "Nah."

"You were a million light years away. I must not be doing something right." Dylan gave Harper's cock another thorough jerk, right enough to make Harper arch his back and thrust up into it.

"You're pretty good. Just need more practice is all," Harper said. Dylan gave him a long-suffering look, then went down on him. Amazing how different the world looked when you were watching and feeling Dylan's mouth wrapped around your cock. "You have my full attention _now_."

  


* * *

Keeping busy over a few days didn't present a problem at all, not with the Andromeda needing so many repairs. He got annoyed by how often they got shot up and thus _needed_ repairs, but he loved his work, and Rommie had sounded surprised and pleased when he told her so. If he didn't already have the job of maintaining and tinkering with the most powerful warship in the known worlds, he'd give his right hand for a chance at it. Well, maybe not his hand, since he wouldn't get as much work done without it. His ear, maybe.

Everything would be fine if Beka would stop sending Trance down to help him. Some help, since just having her nearby made his skin creep. She was fucking _scary_ now that all of her cushioning sweetness and innocence had been taken away along with her purple sheen. He got a pure threat vibe off her now, implacable purpose and ruthlessness standing there tricked out like a killer. She seemed to be partially aware of his problem since she kept putting a thin layer of her old self on when around him, but she wore it awkwardly now, like a coat several sizes too small. It was too obviously a put-on.

His Trance, the one he liked, was never coming back. Not for real. But even that Trance might have been an illusion.

This one had saved his life by using the machine on him. Probably not for entirely altruistic reasons, but she'd still saved his life. But he couldn't stand to be in a room with her, not now that his brain had several unsavory theories on what she was up to and she couldn't even cushion it by looking and acting like his friend anymore.

He finally had to tell her so the time when she brought a Sparky down to him as a blatant jollying gesture. She asked him what his problem was and he told her, just threw it down on the table. Not being able to accept "it's like you're not even you anymore, and now I'm not even sure you were ever you to begin with," she demanded clarification.

Which was when he got stupid and spelled it all out. "Over the past year we've run into so many nasty, evil, jerk-headed, goofball pieces of work I've lost count--Kalderans, Nietzscheans, Magog, crazy starships--you name it, it's attacked us, and I can't help wondering if that's all one big coincidence or if maybe the baddest bad guy--or girl--of them all hasn't been with us, right here, all along, watching and waiting and looking for any opportunity to manipulate us into serving whatever unspeakable ends might be knocking around her formerly purple noggin. Ring any bells?" Too much honesty, but he'd been working up to it for some time and felt the need to say it.

Hurt, but angry-hurt, Trance answered, "You know, there was a time when I thought you were the smartest person I had ever met but listening to you now... if that is the way you think then I am as wrong about you as you are about me. Enjoy your cola." She put the can down and stormed off.

Translation: "You're completely correct, Harper, you bastard." Which fucking hurt. "Thanks, I will!" he yelled back, which was about as skilled and nuanced a riposte as she'd thrown him, but he was upset.

But at least he was left alone for a long while, hours even... until Beka cleared her throat. Shit. "Oh, uh, hey, boss," he answered. "What, uh, what brings you down here?" As if he didn't know.

"Well, I'd like to know why you shooed Trance away after I specifically asked her to come down here and help you with repairs."

"I was doing just fine on my own."

"Did you hear me say, 'pretty please with sugar on top'?" Ouch, her pissy Mom voice combined with her annoyed captain voice. So not good, but like hell he'd back down that easily. She continued, "I have work of my own. I really don't have time to referee some sibling squabble between you and Trance."

"It's not a squabble!" Was she blind? Was she really not aware that she backed up herself every time the new Trance stepped toward her? Harper doubted that. He tried to collect his thoughts to decide how to broach that with Captain Valentine as opposed to Beka, but failed, so he tried to talk to Beka even while she had her invisible captain's hat on. "It's just... I thought I knew Trance, okay, and now she's changed, it's.... I could handle 'quirky and mysterious' but... 'cosmically terrifying'... it's too much, I can't take it, no way!" Well, that was coherent and articulate. Great.

"Harper." Beka paused and sat, as if she had to collect her thoughts too. "She saved your life and that's enough for me. Look, you don't have to like the new Trance," and she overrode the objecting noise he made with "and you don't have to blindly accept what's happened to her, but you will work with her, no questions asked."

Unable to know what words might come flying out of his mouth, Harper answered that with an objecting look. She asked, "What part of 'no questions asked' do you not understand?"

He knew he was being a bit crazy here. If they weren't going to dropkick Trance off the ship at the next planet--and it looked like they weren't--they'd have to work with her.

He gave Beka his best, snarky "yeah, _fine_" look to let her know that he would follow her orders, but under duress. She was his boss. She always let him register his objections, complaints, and suggestions, but when she took on _that_ tone of voice it meant that the tribal chief had spoken and he had to obey. He got that.

But as she walked out she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed for about a minute to let him know that Captain Valentine may stress the need to work together, but Beka understood his problems and sympathized. It made him feel better.

Beka was pretty good about separating the roles, a lot better at it than Dylan was. Maybe it came from running a small crew of near-family as opposed to captaining a military vessel with a crew of thousands. A lot of times Dylan seemed to want to be treated like your friend and your captain simultaneously, which didn't work at all. Maybe it had worked with Gaheris Rhade--who was Nietzschean and had all kinds of hierarchy, alpha dog shit in his culture that made that kind of thing acceptable to him even aside from being military--but that kind of thing didn't fly well with a bunch of independent-minded civilians who respected shrewd judgments on a moment by moment basis more than a rank. They didn't trust that having the title "captain" made you inherently better or right all the time.

Harper wondered sometimes how much Dylan might have walked all over him if he hadn't been the type to stand up for himself. He didn't think Dylan would do it deliberately or maliciously, but like everybody Dylan liked to get his own way, and if his lover didn't put up a fuss, where was the harm?

Maybe the whole Earth fiasco wouldn't have felt quite so bad if Dylan had been better at separating Captain Dylan from "your lover" Dylan. Yeah, it would have still been bad, but maybe it could have hurt a little less on the personal betrayal front.

Harper wondered if there'd be a way to broach the topic of Dylan's relations with the crew in a manner that wouldn't so offend the hell out of Dylan that he'd stop listening to what Harper had to say. Hell, he had a lot of things that needed to be said to Dylan that Dylan needed to listen to, not tune out. The mental exercise of figuring out how made a nice distraction from the Trance thing.

He still didn't have an answer when Beka sent Trance back again to help with his repairs. For formality's sake, Harper asked, "Beka send you again?" Duh, right?

"Yes." Trance handed him his nano-manipulator.

"Thanks." Just because he had to do this didn't mean he had to just roll over and make it easy.

"Looks good," she said. "Just like new."

"Not really. Some of the parts don't exactly match so there are some microscopic stresses. I had to mix a little human engineering with an alien technology. Who knows if that'll work. You know, that's the problem when you try to fix things, Trance. No matter how hard you try to put things back together again it'll never be quite the same." Listen to him being all metaphorical and semi-subtle. He gave her some significant looks to make sure she got it.

"You're right, but maybe if that something is important enough and you try really hard at it, it can turn into something different. Maybe even something better." She gave him a wide-eyed, smiling, original recipe Trance look, which didn't look quite the same.

But it was close enough for now, especially if Beka insisted. "Maybe. You wanna double-check my welds while I re-attach these links?"

She took his palm comp from him. "Yes. Let's get to work."

He smiled at her a little to show her how totally okay he was with her. She didn't have to know that he still retained every doubt he had about her. It was probably better if she didn't.

But he wasn't bad-ass enough not to hope that some parts of the Trance he liked lived in the new body.

  


* * *

To his relief, Trance eventually left, allowing him to make his repairs in peace without doing all the making nice motions. Happiness.

Until Beka showed up with this terrible look in her face that he couldn't quite identify. He said, "Beka, Trance went off to do something in hydroponics. I didn't chase her away, I swear."

Beka shook her head. "Dylan's back."

"That's great!" Since the look on her face took a turn for the worse, he asked, "That's not great? Beka, what's wrong with him?"

"I'm asking that myself."

Terror squeezed him. "What?"

"No! Not like that. Look, Tyr and Rommie had to track him down because mercenaries were on his tail. Calm down! They found him, and he's alive and not hurt at all."

Son of a-- "Tyr was supposed to be with him."

"Dylan told Tyr to split off from him to try to distract the pursuit. Dylan confirmed that."

"Okay, so he's alive and unhurt and not betrayed. Later on I can get pissed off that nobody told me this while this stuff was going on because right now I'm too busy asking what the damage is." Because he knew why they hadn't told him: they didn't want to upset the "almost died recently" guy until they had no choice. Which had to fucking _stop_, but he could get into that with them later.

Beka sat beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. "Dylan had to hijack a cruise ship to escape the mercenaries--"

Harper tried to push some levity through the cold feeling he had. "Hey, go, Dylan."

"He brought the pilot back with him and he's entertaining her in his quarters right now."

"Oh." Fuck. Oh, fuck. "Maybe they're not--" He saw the twist of Beka's mouth. "Oh, fuck." He had to shove the words past the thick lump in his throat.

He'd felt something wrong, but ignored it. He should have expected something....

She squeezed his shoulder. "He's insane, Seamus. We knew he was unstable before, but I really think he's snapped."

"Is she pretty?" He had to get that stunned squeak out of his voice. God, he ached. He hadn't ached this badly in days.

"That's not--"

Was there some way to make this sound better to himself? "Beka, we never made some kind of deal about being exclusive. I just kind of assumed it, but, you know, we're on a ship crewed by a really tiny number of people. Maybe things got too heavy, too emotional, for him. Maybe my near death scared him too much. Maybe he was having problems with me, but didn't feel right dumping me when I had so much trouble coming down on my head. It's not a sign of insanity that he kicked me to the curb. Hell, a lot of people might see this and figure it's a sign of _sanity_. Maybe he came to his senses."

"No, Harper, no, it's not like that. We're taking a three-week cruise. He wants to show his chippie the Commonwealth signatory worlds. The Andromeda Ascendant is now a frigging cruise ship."

What? "Is he out of his fucking mind?"

Beka smiled bitterly. "Now you got it."

"What about his quest to restore the Commonwealth? Get allies against the Magog who are still--by the way--coming as quickly as they can? These things are his fucking _life_, but he's throwing them aside for the next three weeks out of the blue?"

"For a cute blonde. Yeah, Seamus. 'Maybe he came to his senses'? Like hell. 'Maybe he's an asshole' is more like it. 'Maybe he snapped' is also more like it."

"He announced this? Why didn't I hear it?"

"He didn't announce it yet. Rommie was eavesdropping because she was so pissed over the trouble she and Tyr went to while looking for him and saving him, only to open the hatch and find him making out with his pilot."

He wasn't the only one in pain. "This has to be killing Rommie."

"Right now I'm more concerned about you. You're the one he screwed over the worst here."

"It hurts. It hurts really bad." He wasn't even sure how badly yet, but he figured that it would get worse as the news sunk in. It came down to trust again. He fucking _knew_ Dylan was untrustworthy, from recent experience even, yet he let his hormones and pathetic neediness throw him right back into the snake pit. "Let's... see if he really makes that announcement. Maybe he'll change his mind once he gets the blood flowing back to his brain again and realizes what a stupid idea this is."

"That still doesn't undo him picking up that girl. And not just picking her up, but bringing her back here for more." Beka just about blazed with anger. "How the fuck could he do this to you? Aside from the useless and unnecessary cruelty of it, the fact that you almost died recently should have given him a moment's thought. I should break his kneecaps."

"That wouldn't solve anything."

"It would make us feel a bit better."

"True. But physical stuff doesn't register as much with Dylan as getting into his head." Besides, the thought of physically ripping into Dylan felt so dangerously tempting.

"Our whole problem is that he's unstable."

"You think it wouldn't damage his fragile psyche to have his first officer trying to kick his ass?"

"Good point."

"We need finesse and the right words." Harper banged his head back against the wall. "Which means _I_ probably shouldn't talk to him, since I don't have either at the moment."

Dylan's voice came over the comm. "Crew, report to the bridge."

"Brisk of him," Beka muttered.

Harper shook his head. Beka gave his shoulder another squeeze.

  


* * *

Beka stood near Harper as a comforting presence as they all faced Dylan. Under his I-know-what-I'm-doing-don't-question-me captain's face, Dylan had something lingering in the set of his eyes and mouth that suggested that he realized that this might be unpopular. But his tone was all I've-got-a-treat-for-you. "We've had a rough time over the past year and especially recently, so I've decided that we should take a vacation. Over the next three weeks we'll be visiting the Commonwealth signatory worlds, doing some rest and recuperation."

Beka stiffened at the "especially recently." Harper couldn't get any stiffer without shattering. Rommie's mouth twisted. Trance's look suggested that she had something she was thinking through.

"What are we to do with ourselves during this... vacation?" Tyr asked, danger in his voice.

Dylan raised an eyebrow. "Rest and recreation, Tyr. It sounds self-explanatory to me. If anyone needs any help deciding what to do with themselves, I can help."

"Dylan, I am not a cruise ship," Rommie said, an edge of pissiness creeping into her voice.

"It's a good thing to try something different once in a while."

"Dylan," Beka said, "this is a bit of an unusual move for you. You're usually so driven."

"Are you accusing me of something?"

"Maybe."

"I think we need this." Dylan's gaze swept over Harper and lingered for a moment. "We have a guest during these weeks. Her name is Molly. I expect her to be treated with the proper hospitality. Dismissed." But as Harper started to trail out, grateful to leave, Dylan said, "Harper, please stay."

Harper nodded at Beka to go. She shook her head but walked on.

Harper looked at Dylan and tried to be dead inside. He didn't know if he felt more angry than depressed, so he'd rather feel nothing. "If this is about your guest, Beka told me about her."

Dylan sighed. "She shouldn't have done that."

"Beka has my back." The "unlike some people" remained unspoken, but from the look in Dylan's eyes he heard it anyway. "Are you going to tell me that this woman _isn't_ a special sleepover friend?"

"No, I can't. Harper. I didn't mean for this to happen."

"That's great. I mean, it makes everything better to know that you didn't go out deliberately shopping for a replacement."

Dylan breathed out. "I'm sorry, Harper."

"How am I supposed to react? With the way we started out, you cannot tell me that you thought we were just a sex for convenience thing."

"No, I won't insult you with that."

Harper had to just about spit his words out through his clenched teeth. "Don't do me any favors. Why did you even bother with me, Dylan? Did you like the idea that I had an expiration date? Are you into necrophilia? What were you thinking? I'm dying to know."

"Harper!"

"I'm sorry, am I supposed to be making this easy for you?"

"We never said that we were exclusive."

"I'm an exclusive kind of guy. I'm sorry you didn't figure that out about me."

Dylan looked pained. "This is why I don't usually get involved with crew."

Dylan didn't know what pain was. "It's a little too late for that now. I don't understand, Dylan. I don't understand how you can care deeply for billions of people you'll never meet, but screw over your friends."

"Harper--"

Harper shook his head. "I have work to do."

"This is a vacation."

"And that's supposed to be a candy coating on the bitter pill that not only have I been thrown over, but I also have to make nice on a daily basis with the girl you threw me over for? If I'm on this ship, I work. Get me to a planet, and I'll take off." Harper snapped out a mocking salute. "If you want to talk to me about anything related to the operation of our warship, you can find me pretty easily."

All things considered, it was a pretty graceful exit. Especially since Dylan didn't apologize for anything at that moment or stop him from leaving. The only thing that stopped Harper from punching a wall once he reached the hallway was that he loved Rommie too much to take his anger out on her.

  


* * *

When Rommie's avatar crawled into Harper's access tunnel, he couldn't help smiling at her a little. With her black and red faux leather with mesh outfit and blue-streaked black hair, she had some kind of bizarre punk dominatrix pixie look going.

Her words killed his smile. "How could he go out for armaments and bring back a blonde?" she asked, enraged. "What am I supposed to do with _her_? As much personal satisfaction as it might give me to put her in a missile tube and shoot her out into space, I doubt she'd do as much damage as munitions would. Dylan didn't even have the decency to bring arms _along with_ his little friend."

Holy shit. As much as the thought of killing Dylan and his chippie, slowly and painfully, gave him a big happy, he didn't intend to actually do it. How did you talk a warship out of murder? "Killing is wrong" wouldn't work, and it would sound hypocritical coming from him or any other member of this crew anyway.

But before he could say anything, Rommie said, "I can't believe he did this to you."

Aw. "I can't believe it either. And expecting you to ferry his girlfriend around like you're some kind of pleasure barge is pretty damned cruel to you, considering how you feel about him."

She stiffened. "Does everyone know about my feelings for Dylan?"

"Everyone except Dylan."

"That figures." She sat down gracefully beside him. "I didn't mind him being involved with you as much. You're family."

"Uh, Rommie, we have a word for that. It's 'incest.'"

"Incest is a taboo started for reproductive reasons, so it shouldn't apply to two men. In any case, you're not actual blood family, sharing similar DNA, thus forestalling any true objections about incest. I like you, Harper, and if you and Dylan made one another happy, that made me happy. This girl Molly is a disruptive stranger with no purpose for being here."

Harper could name the purpose, but it would only set Rommie off. Besides, he had an idea. "Wanna get back at Dylan a bit?"

"Very much."

"Maybe you could be more physically affectionate with me in public. In front of a certain person."

Seeming much more cheerful, Rommie had a lovely evil smile on her face. "And you're consenting to this strategy purely out of altruism."

"Nah, I'd enjoy it too. But I think you see my thinking here."

"I do. I'll give it some thought. Thank you." She kissed his forehead and crawled out.

Harper watched and enjoyed the view. He was hurting, not dead.

  


* * *

Tyr showed up about an hour later. Harper gave him a long look, then asked, "And what do you have to say about all this? You always have an opinion."

Tyr smiled a little. "If you're asking for it...."

"You're so full of it."

"It might be easy to see why he chooses to patronize this woman instead of you, since the mating urge is a force to be reckoned with, but he has not treated you honorably, which is odd for someone who claims to be a man of honor."

Harper crossed his arms, bitterly amused. "And you don't approve."

"I do not."

"You're just upset that Dylan one-upped you by finding a woman."

"As she is not a Nietzschean, Dylan and I are not in competition for her favor, so it actually means very little. The point is that it is not wise to treat allies so shabbily without good reason."

"I imagine that you're pissed that Dylan volunteered us for a kind of almost three-week vacation without bothering to ask if we wanted it first."

"As captain, he could say that it is his prerogative," Tyr said, insincerity dripping from his words.

"Uh-huh."

"However, it is annoying."

"Bingo."

"'Bingo'?"

"One of my obscure references. Okay, fine. I get it. You want me to know that if I ever feel like turning on Dylan for being such a asshole, you're waiting with open arms."

At least Tyr stayed predictable. Most of the time.

Tyr nodded. "I'd say that you have reached a correct encapsulation of my message."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

"Dylan commanded us to rest and take a vacation."

"Without the right surroundings, I vacation about as well as I imagine you vacation."

Tyr smiled. He'd been doing a lot of that lately. "Then we understand each other," he said with a tone of cheerful sarcasm.

"Oh, yeah."

  


* * *

Not long after Tyr left, Trance showed up. Harper sighed. "Okay, what do you have to say about him?"

"Him?"

"Dylan."

"Nothing."

"Good."

"Although, now that you mention him, his relations with Molly seem a bit out of character."

Oh, hell. "Out. Please, just go."

Trance looked annoyed. "I thought we were working past that."

"Trance, I just had Beka, Rommie, and Tyr give me a talking to in succession. I have hashed this situation out for other people way more than anybody should have to. Now I'm going to go somewhere private and console myself with a beer or three."

"Oh. I'm sorry." She put her hand on his shoulder, and he managed not to flinch at her closeness.

"Yeah. Thanks."

  


* * *

Harper retreated to a bunk on the Maru for some serious drinking. Having eaten nothing since a snack he'd scarfed hours before he got the news about Dylan's new squeeze, and freed from being host to a clutch of alcohol-leeching Magog larvae, Harper passed out after four beers. But he didn't sleep well, waking up often, missing having company in bed even though he'd slept alone a lot lately. Startling awake after a dream about something ripping its way out of his chest in a spray of blood, he buried his head in his pillow and beat it for a while, trying to take his aggression out on something.

Finally he gave up and got dressed for work. In the absence of getting any real sleep, he needed to find another kind of oblivion.

As he walked through the hallway, Rommie came up to him, grabbed him by the arm, and started to direct his path. Given her strength, he let himself be pulled along but said, "I have work, you know."

"No, you don't. We're on vacation, remember?" she answered with a brittle brightness. It almost outshone the luster of her tight black vinyl outfit. Rommie definitely had vengeance on her mind.

They navigated around for a bit until she slowed down after one of their turns and started to walk in an elaborately casual manner. If Dylan wasn't walking somewhere close behind them, Harper would eat his toolbelt.

"I wanted to ask you about human sexuality," Rommie said as she put her arm over his shoulder and pulled him near.

Harper was glad he hadn't been drinking something at the time, since the spit take would have been incredible. "Anything in particular about it? It's a big topic."

"I've heard that dangerous situations can initiate a sexual reaction."

Nice dig at Dylan pouncing his pilot. Harper could play with that. "A lot of the human sex drive is tied in to our mortality. A near-death experience can make us want to jump someone."

"Then it's better to have someone around during such times. Did you experience that?"

Harper put maximum sadness into his soft little "No, I didn't."

Rommie brought up a flexi for him to look at, keying up a page: "Can _you_ do this?"

Maybe she didn't trust his acting abilities or just wanted to be as realistic as possible, because she could have showed him something neutral, like a schematic of the slipdrive engine, and trusted him to react the right way. But instead she presented a very graphic picture that made Harper's cock and lower back ache simultaneously. He figured he was pretty flexible, but even he didn't know if two people could achieve that position without dislocating some limbs and doing something funky with their spines first. It didn't help that he could feel himself blushing to the roots of his hair.

"Whoa. Uh. Why me?"

"You _are_ flexible and agile. And I feel close to you."

It might have been playacting, but the sentiment still warmed him. "Oh. Well. I think maybe I could do that with a few beers under my belt and the right lubrication."

"How about this one?"

A little more prepared this time, he answered, "That would get uncomfortable real quick." He didn't even squeak as he said it.

"I wouldn't experience discomfort."

Was she serious? No, she wouldn't go _that_ far, not just to upset Dylan. Didn't mean Dylan had to know that. Harper said, "Please tell me that's a proposition."

Dylan suddenly called out from behind them, "Rommie, I need you on the bridge now." But an edge of panic had crept into his voice.

With a sweet, sweet smile on her face, Rommie said, "Yes, Dylan." She handed Harper the flexi. "We can continue our talk later."

"Sure, gorgeous."

Rommie kissed him with little expertise but a lot of enthusiasm. And tongue. He melted into her strong grip and kissed back, sighing at the feel of her fingertips zinging through his hair and on his scalp and the confident pressure of her hand on his back. Her more than human solidity felt very comforting and even a bit exciting, though he didn't let himself get too excited since she didn't really mean this. This was... evil fun touching. Grinning, smirking, she let him go and started to walk away with Dylan.

"Hey, Dylan," Harper called out, and when Dylan turned to look at him said, "I thought we were on vacation. What do you need Rommie on the bridge for?"

Dylan gave him a hunted look in return, then turned away again. Jeez, it sucked when your plans didn't work out the way you wanted, didn't it, Dylan? Harper shook his head and went on to his self-appointed project of the day.

  


* * *

As he ended his shift, he passed the door to Dylan's quarters. Totally by coincidence, really, but it made him think about something. "Andromeda, are Dylan and his chippie in there?"

Rommie's voice over the comm said, "Right now they're on obs deck."

"Good." Yeah, he was going to do this. He put his hand to the pad, but the door didn't open. Locked to him. That told him what he needed to know and what he had to do. "Override lock, code Zelazny 4711-niner."

Rommie could have objected or tried to stop him, but didn't. Maybe out of curiosity.

The door shut behind him with a soft swish, but he had already moved away, searching. He didn't see them where he'd left them. Well, Dylan wouldn't want evidence of his last fling hanging around where his current fling might see and ask, now would he?

After 15 minutes, Harper found his boots, carefully placed at the front of Dylan's closet. With everything that had happened and all the times he'd already turned the other cheek only to find Dylan preparing to smack him again, he refused to see any significance in the way they hadn't been thrown to the back and buried under something. He couldn't afford to be stupid anymore, and masochism wasn't his thing. He pulled them out and crouched next to them.

Dylan must have polished them up like this. They had more of a gleam than Harper had ever put on them, felt slightly tacky with it, and had a sharp scent to them.

They were Harper's excuse boots. If he felt uncertain of his welcome in Dylan's quarters, he always had a pair of boots left in here that he could convincingly come in and claim, testing the waters. He hadn't schemed this up; it had just happened, then worked well enough for him that he started keeping one pair or another here. Dylan had smiled about it.

And so many people thought it physically impossible for Harper to be diffident.

Harper closed the closet door, picked up the boots, and left Dylan's quarters with them. Since he hadn't slept there in a while, he didn't really have any clothing around; it had all gone to the cleaners and been delivered to his room. Only the boots had remained. The door would lock again behind him.

Andromeda asked, sounding concerned, "If Dylan asks about them, should I tell him?" She popped up next to him in hologram form, perhaps as a personal touch.

Harper spoke past the lump in his throat. "If he asks, tell him I went in and got them, yeah. But I don't think he will."

  


* * *

Once Harper put his boots back in his room, he felt way too restless to sleep, so he went for a walk, so lost in a haze that he didn't really notice or think about anything. He preferred it that way. Mechanical, blank, going through the motions. Eventually he noticed that Tyr walked beside him.

"When did you get here?" Harper asked.

"However did you survive?" Tyr asked back.

"I didn't used to care about anyone other than myself. I let myself in for a lot less pain that way."

Harper somehow felt that he'd scored a hit on Tyr without meaning to. He could swear that a flinch lurked in Tyr's dark eyes.

"This isn't productive," Tyr answered instead.

"More productive than tossing and turning in my bed. I may even wear myself out enough to sleep after going walkabout."

"You could stay with me tonight to sleep. I told you that you could when you needed to."

That was... really fucking odd actually. Why would Tyr do that? "That was when I still had the larvae in my gut out to kill me."

"I know. My offer still applies."

"You know, now that I don't have 13 little death sentences nesting in my body, you don't have any excuses for your generosity anymore."

"You still need comforting and remain a valuable member of this crew, one who helps my continuing survival."

Oh sure. "You're good at the rationalizations, aren't ya?"

Tyr smiled a little and tossed his head back, clearing his locks from his eyes. "It helps me sleep at night. Speaking of which...."

Company. Warmth. All his if he just shared a bed with a Nietzschean.

Was he really going to do this? Harper sighed. Tyr doing the big, doe-eyed routine was not helping. Who knew the big guy could do doe eyes? Jeez. He needed something, Tyr needed something....

He should fight this harder.

Too tired, too needy, he didn't. It wasn't like he was going to let Tyr fuck him the way Dylan had. Fuck him, fuck him over.... Tyr wouldn't get to do any of that.

"Okay," Harper said.

"I find your air of resigned doom flattering."

"Bite me. And I did _not_ mean that literally."

"I know."

Harper walked into Tyr's room. No biggie, he'd been here before, even slept in Tyr's bed--though not with Tyr in it with him--but somehow he always expected to walk into a scene of barbaric splendor and was always surprised by how Spartan the room was.

They shed boots and belts, and Tyr took off his chain mail too, leading to a view that forced Harper to wonder once again how the hell Tyr had time for a life _and_ still maintained all that cut muscle. The guy should be spending his every hour planning his diet and working out or something.

Big, comfy bed, so Tyr didn't go all out monkish or anything. Tyr settled beside him and stroked his hair, slowly, rhythmically, his fingers occasionally going all the way to Harper's scalp and leaving it feeling kind of tingly. Harper consciously slowed his breathing down, then closed his eyes.

Whoever thought it would come to this: him willingly lying in a Nietzschean's bed getting petted by said Nietzschean. Yeah, some people on Earth catered to the decadent, kludge-using tastes of some of the Dragans to get extra food for their families, so this wasn't entirely unprecedented. Harper himself had done some things he wasn't proud of for food or to help friends, but those times had all been mentally going somewhere else and thinking of England kind of times, not an invite in and him staying because he wanted to. Not him being vaguely turned on, and hoping very strongly that Tyr couldn't smell it on him. God, he was going to hell.

Tyr shook him by the shoulder. "Stop that."

"What?"

"That."

"Are you trying to tell me that you can smell me being depressed or something?"

"Yes," Tyr growled.

Arrrrgh. And if Tyr could smell him being _depressed_, then he could also smell.... Damn. Double arrrrgh, with a grrr chaser. When Tyr found a person's weakness, he tended to parade it around and rub your nose in it. Harper waited for the starting salvo, but it never arrived.

"Go to _sleep_," Tyr said.

"If you say you can hear me thinking, I'll tell you you're full of shit."

"Then I won't."

Harper closed his eyes, calmed himself, and eventually let the fingers stroking through his hair lull him to sleep.

  


* * *

When he woke up, he was confused. Instead of being burrowed against someone or clasped tight, he was lying with only a warm, callused hand on his hip where his shirt had ridden up connecting him to his sleepmate at all. Somebody was falling down on the job. He slid backward and found himself up against an exceedingly hard body. No cushioning anywhere. Then he realized that none of this smelled like a bed he should be in or a person he should be in it with, and panic stabbed at him.

Where the hell was he? Who was he with?

"Peace. Boy... Harper, stop struggling," Tyr said.

Oh yeah, Tyr. Harper was having one of the low points of his life.

Tyr's hand traveled up his ribs under his shirt, making him catch his breath. When callused fingertips rubbed across his nipple, he went hard, but tried to hide his reaction. For all the good that did against a guy who could smell it on him. Hell, he could have a sex dream and Tyr would probably be able to tell whom he'd been dreaming about just from how he smelled. He felt something firm and warm slide across his skin along with Tyr's hand and realized that he had to be feeling Tyr's bone spurs, which made various parts of his body jump for various reasons, some of which he wasn't proud of. Tyr stopped his progress over Harper's pounding heart. Harper's every breath made Tyr's hand move a little.

"You really are absurdly sensitive," Tyr said, his breath hot against the back of Harper's neck. "Many things about you suddenly make more sense."

"What, if I did this to you, you wouldn't react at all? _Not_ that I intend to feel you up."

"Is that what I'm doing?"

"What you're doing is asking for an ass-kicking. I don't mind people playing with me, but I hate it when someone toys with me." Do something or let him take care of himself already.

"You're not as soft as you appear to be."

"This is just a late night evaluation of my muscle tone?'

"During our mission to find Dylan, the computer made some accusations of me."

"The computer" meant "Rommie." "Wrong ones, I'm sure."

"Utterly baseless. And yet I am forced to reevaluate my actions to discover what it is I'm doing that gave her such an impression."

"I'm waiting to find out what this has to do with your hand being close to my nipple."

Tyr moved it again, sliding it across Harper's ribs, then finally off him entirely. Harper thought of cleaning out the Maru's septic system--mentally following the process in long, disgusting detail--in an effort to get his body back under control. No way in hell he intended to jerk off in Tyr's room from things _Tyr_ did to him. Worse, from things Tyr did to him expressly to mess with his head.

"I'll tell you when I know," Tyr answered before rolling away, his back turned to Harper.

It felt colder without Tyr lying snug against him.

Harper rolled out of bed and stood up. "Fuck this. I don't have to put up with this shit. Dylan doesn't get to fuck with me, and neither do you. If you ever get your heads straight, send me a message. Just not in person, since I'm staying clear of the both of you."

"Harper." Tyr grabbed his arm, but gently. _Firmly_ too, keeping it trapped really well, but gently. "I apologize. I'm not accustomed to this."

"Yeah, well, it's not like anybody handed me a schematic either."

"Stay. I won't molest you against your will."

Leaving Harper the option of asking to be molested. Which wouldn't happen. "I'll stay, but only because of your non-molestation promise and the novelty of having a Nietzschean apologize to me." Harper climbed back into bed as carefully as he would negotiate a minefield. "Remember, no matter how irresistible I am, you do not get to molest me. You promised."

Tyr flung the cover up over him. Rolling his eyes, Harper curled up under it and let the warmth and his own carefully deep breathing put him back to sleep.

It only took about a half hour.

  


* * *

Harper woke up loosely clasped with a hard, massive arm draped over him, an odd pressure against his outer thigh, and someone's hand splayed out, warm and protective, on his belly under his shirt. Nice, but not Dylan, which meant that this was Tyr's bed. And that those were Tyr's bone spurs resting against Harper's outer thigh.

Just another typical morning for Seamus Zelazny Harper as he continued his bed-hopping career as the Goldilocks of the Andromeda Ascendant crew. This was definitely a moment in which he wished he were too soft instead of too hard. He wondered how long it would take him to smother himself with one of Tyr's pillows.

"You're awake," Tyr said.

"And so are you. This is molestation, Tyr." And it made him uncomfortable how comfortable it felt.

"Surely not."

"Uh, yeah, it is."

"Then your definition is different from mine."

"If you try to tell me that you believe that anything short of having your fist around my cock or your fingers up my ass is _not_ molestation, I am not going to believe you."

Tyr made a low, rumbling sound. Harper quickly answered that with "I have to go. Shower, get dressed, have breakfast--"

"I could prepare a breakfast for you."

"_You_ could."

"I have some skill and craft in the art of food preparation."

"It's really not necessary. I'm not that--" Harper's stomach rumbled a little. Since Tyr's hand still rested over it.... "All right. Fine. Breakfast it is. Why wouldn't we want to extend an awkward morning after? Now will you let go of me so I can visit the bathroom?"

Tyr slowly moved his restraining hand away with an elaborate gesture that did Harper's morning wood no favors. Harper thought obsessively of septic systems as he bolted away. There would be no jerking off in Tyr's bathroom.

Washing up after draining the lizard, yawning widely, Harper noticed shadows under his eyes, but even with that he looked better than he had days ago, more vibrant even under the fatigue pallor. He almost had a bit of glow to his cheeks now. No larvae and no meds made such a huge difference.

His hair looked droopy from needing a washing and being slept on, and he could really, really use a shave. He'd feel much more human after a shower and a change of clothes in his own room.

Conclusion from the "overnighter in Tyr's room" experiment? Harper still felt overtired and shitty, so he had to say that it hadn't improved anything.

When Harper walked out, he noticed that Tyr had industriously taken out a ton of ingredients and proceeded to speed-chop the living hell out of a bunch of vegetables that had never done anyone any harm. Guy definitely knew his way around a knife. Tyr looked every bit as lethal dicing veggies as he looked while... well, while doing almost anything else.

"Have a seat," Tyr said, pointing Harper to a chair with his knife as his directional baton.

"Or you'll dismember me?" Harper picked up his boots and toolbelt.

"Don't tempt me."

"That's not buddies."

"We are not--"

"Sitting." Besides, he had an easier time putting his boots on while sitting.

Harper watched as Tyr, playing the half-naked chef, constructed omelets with the same dramatic flair he brought to everything he did. Everything was a big production with Nietzscheans. Harper had actually nailed a few back in the day because they were so busy being drama queens that he got the drop on them. Of course, Dragans weren't the brightest bulbs in the Nietzschean box, though they made up for it in the conquering game by having such huge numbers and being ridiculously over-armed.

Harper amused himself by imagining Tyr in a big white chef's hat and an apron with the words "Kiss the Cook" blazoned on it.

Another dramatic gesture, this time with a spatula, delivered the omelet to Harper's plate. Inhaling the rising steam, he said, "Mmm. Smells good. Where's the salt?"

"You will use none."

"Hey!"

"You will not profane that with any extraneous seasoning, especially without tasting it first. Stop pouting."

He was not pouting. His sour expression at being commanded around like a five-year-old had nothing to do with pouting. Too many people treated him like a kid because of his vertical size. "I have things I need in the morning. If I don't get any foods from the sugar group, I need my salt. Either way, caffeine is a necessity."

"You are an ungrateful little creature."

"You sound so surprised."

Tyr handed him a plate of sliced kiwis. "Your sweets."

Oh, fuck. Harper suddenly had to swallow past a lump in his throat. Was he going to let Dylan ruin him for kiwis? After all, he'd liked them ages before he even met Dylan. He'd write over his memories of having them at breakfast with Dylan if he had to.

"Is something wrong?" Tyr asked.

"I love kiwis," Harper answered, knowing that his tone made it sound like a lie, staring fixedly down at the vibrant green slices.

"I know. Our captain ordered them a few times after becoming involved with you, which is a few times more than he did prior."

Harper's eyes darted up to stare at him. "You were studying our menu?"

"Knowledge is power."

Damned right. So was force of will. As Harper picked up a piece and savored the sweet, soft flesh and tart, crunchy seeds, he overwrote "breakfast with Dylan" with strengthened memories of a long ago day on the Maru when Beka had brought him a basket of things she wanted to watch him try. Once she found out what he liked, she stayed on the lookout for it in the future. Which made up for her laughing herself sick over the faces he'd made while trying those awful star-shaped fruits. Kiwis showed some of her care for him, and like hell he'd let Dylan fuck with that by stealing his enjoyment of them away.

When Harper opened his eyes, he noticed that Tyr was staring at him, looking distracted. "What's up with you?"

"Eat your omelet," Tyr answered irritably.

"Grouchy." But the omelet was great, even without salt. As he switched off between that and his kiwi slices--which _did not_ make him think of Dylan, ever--he said, "You know, I could have cut up the kiwi. You've let me borrow a knife before."

Tyr smiled a little. Fighting together against the Magog remained their one great bonding experience. Tyr had been proud of him that day, and Harper guessed that in the end refusing a round to the head had turned out right, though it had taken months to get to "right."

"True," Tyr said.

"I actually like to pet them."

"Knives?"

"If you do that, I so don't wanna know. Kiwis."

"Do you name them as well?"

"Tyr, you know I name everything."

"There are some things _I_ don't wish to know."

Good food, good coffee, and weird conversation got Harper through breakfast. "That was really good. Thanks. Now I have to go start my day and everything. Uh, have a good day."

"I doubt it," Tyr answered.

"Yeah." Wow, they hadn't even had sex, and this was still awkward. "See ya around."

Harper did not run from the room. But he walked really quickly.

  


* * *

When Harper saw Dylan's chickie wandering the hallway around lunchtime, he tried to turn and get away before she noticed him. He failed. She rushed up to him, all perky wide smile and hopeful, puppyish look. He didn't think he'd ever been as young as she seemed in his entire life. She also had moments where she seemed like some kind of bizarre, alternate reality version of Beka, a soft, cute one. That especially freaked the hell out of him.

"Hi," she said. "I'm a bit lost. I'm trying to get to the mess hall, but nothing has identification markings on it and the computer won't respond to give me help."

That was a huge surprise. "Well, we're a warship. We get invaded sometimes, and we don't want the bad guys to be able to find their way around easily. If you--" He'd almost said, "If you belong here, you know where you're going," but stopped because of the way she was looking at him, like she was really thankful he was here.

She seemed really _nice_. Dylan couldn't have the decency to throw him over for someone he could feel justified in hating? That was so unfair.

Harper also knew how dashing Dylan could be, although if somebody had stolen _Beka's_ ship and kidnapped her, a kiss would not be what she'd plant on the guy's mug no matter how dashing he was. For a possibly romantic-minded woman, a tall, handsome, dashing kidnapper and a life and death situation to really get the lust going would inevitably result in them hooking up. Dylan was the older one who had a steady who'd recently been at death's door back home.

Dylan was the one who deserved to have his eyes ripped out by weasels, not Molly.

Instead of saying something bitchy or accidentally hurtful, Harper said, "I'll lead you to the mess."

"Really? Thank you! I know I must be imposing on all of you, and I hate that."

"Anybody give you any trouble? We're not known for our social graces." Great job, Dylan. You didn't throw a puppy in with the barracudas.

"I'm sure you were all surprised."

He gave her a little smile. "Yeah, and our usual method of dealing with surprises is to shoot them. It comes from having lots of people trying to kill us." He wasn't going out of his way to scare her or anything; she just had to be told that they seemed to have a big, flashing target on their backs.

"The Nietzschean stares at me every time I walk by," she whispered, as if afraid he'd overhear. Smart, actually, because with Tyr, he might hear, even several levels away.

"Tyr's just wondering how much sway you have over Dylan and if it'd be worthwhile trying to steal you from him."

"You're kidding!"

Harper shrugged. "He's Nietzschean."

"The red-haired girl is strangely terrifying."

"_Thank you_."

Molly smiled. "I thought you were going to tell me she wasn't really."

"Nope, she is scary. That's Trance. Not even we understand what her story is."

She followed him up the ladder. "What about the blonde woman?"

Had to give Beka her full props. "That's Captain Valentine, Beka. As Dylan's second in command, she's not happy when he does an extreme left turn on her out of the blue and declares a cruise vacation."

"I can understand that. And what's your--"

Harper immediately switched topics. "That's a pretty implant you got there."

"It had to be. They hired me partly on my looks. It's annoying, but it got me a job."

"Looks wireless."

"It is, but it doesn't do much other than give me better access to the Hildy's piloting system. I was linked to her. Now that she's gone...."

Yeah, Dylan had kind of sent Molly's original life and career down the tubes. "It's like a phantom pain, right?"

Of course she sounded sad. "Yeah."

"Hard enough losing something when it _isn't_ connected to your brain and central nervous system."

Molly followed him quietly for a moment then said, "It looks like yours is more multi-purpose. Are you a pilot?"

"I fly us once in a while, but I'm really the engineer. The port's for jacking into the mainframe to find and fix things."

"The Andromeda Ascendant really is a beautiful ship. Maybe I'll get to fly something like it one day."

Harper went from a warm feeling of pride to a terror that she'd mention her wish to Dylan and he'd be insane enough to give her a try at piloting. Dylan had to know that Rommie and Beka would eviscerate him, but considering the other bad judgment calls he'd made lately....

Talking to Molly, Harper really got the feeling that she had no idea that Dylan had had a steady squeeze back home, putting the evil completely on Dylan's head for not saying a word. Molly really was nice, too perky, but friendly and likeable, and she had a brain, which was more than any member of the crew had expected. He could see what attracted Dylan to her aside from her looks. She was cute and starry-eyed and short-term and very impressed with Dylan, while Harper only fit one of the four. Considering that none of the crew was terribly impressed by Dylan, no matter how much respect they usually had for him, maybe Dylan really got off on having somebody look up to him.

Short term. What was Harper going to do with or to Dylan once they dropped Molly off at Mobius?

"Maybe this is none of my business, but you look so sad suddenly," Molly said, looking concerned.

It was _so_ unfair that she was nice. "It's... nothing. We've just had a rough year, and I was very sick for a long time recently."

"I'm sorry."

"Eh, there's nothing you can do. Here we are. Can you find your way back? It's easy if you count the struts and ladders."

Molly looked sheepish. "I was lost before. Following my way back would just return me to being lost."

Okay. Something had to be done. "Rommie, doll. Could you please give Molly directional help when she asks for it?" He'd phrased that carefully. Asking Rommie to "tell Molly where to go" would only lead to badness. "Please? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"All right," Rommie said, sounding only vaguely annoyed. At least she was trying not to be too evil to Dylan's fling.

"Thank you."

"My hero," Molly said. "Could we have lunch together?"

Okay, his masochism only went so far. "I really have work I gotta get back to. But thanks. Oh, hey, Beka."

She nodded to him as he walked away. He could vaguely hear Molly saying something, being able to vaguely make out the word "nice," but Beka's voice carried very deliberately. "Oh, that's Harper. He's one of Dylan's blondes."

Oh, ouch. He had to look back. Molly was staring at him with horror, while Beka nodded to him. Definitely time for a swift exit.

Once he reached his access tube of the afternoon, Andromeda asked, "Why do you want me to help that little bit of fluff? _You_, of all people. Has she turned your head too?"

"No, it's not like that. She didn't know, and she seems like a decent person. Don't let her distract you from remembering who the true jerk of the piece is."

Andromeda was silent for a while, then said, "I'm just angry. I don't like seeing you hurting either."

"I don't like to be hurting. And thanks."

Harper spent some blissful time lost in recalibrations until Dylan, looking annoyed and chagrined at once, showed up and sat down next to him. Great. "Anything I can do for you, boss?" Harper asked.

Dylan took a deep breath and seemed to be trying to collect his thoughts.

Impatient with this shit, Harper asked, "Is this about me directing Molly to the mess hall? She's nice, and I'm not scum, okay? When she asked me to tell her where to go, I very kindly showed her instead of _told_ her where she could go. I didn't even tell her anything about your shameful secret, namely me. You can ask her." If you actually ever talked to her at all instead of just used her as a perky bedtoy. "You left her alone, and she got lost. End of story."

"I didn't come here to accuse you of anything."

"Oh yeah?"

"Molly likes you." Dylan sounded surprised. Gee, thanks.

"I like her too, though she needs to be a bit less peppy."

"I'm just wondering what might have happened."

"Why?"

"She said she needed time to think about something."

Maybe about Beka's comment about Dylan's blondes. If so, good kid. "I just acted friendly and made chit chat. You know, being nice, I could give her a tour of the ship so she doesn't get lost again."

"No, that's really not necessary."

Harper shrugged. "Whatever."

"Your boots were gone." He sounded mournful, though not entirely surprised.

Harper fired back with "You changed the lock."

"You spent the night with _Tyr_."

"You kept Rommie so busy yesterday that she couldn't come see me. If you ever had any right to decide who I associate with--and, by the way, you never did--you _really_ have no right now that you threw me to the curb with the trash."

"That wasn't how I wanted you to take it. I didn't think it would be such a problem."

"Well, guess what, that's about the only way a person can take what you did to me, Dylan. 'You didn't think' is right. Nobody told me that I was just warming your bed until somebody better came along."

"That's not what I did."

"That's how it seemed and felt."

Dylan stared down at his hands. "I changed the lock because I wasn't sure how you'd take this."

"You thought I'd retaliate, huh? Probably smart of you. But I'm trying to be mature about this, though you sure are making it hard."

"Tyr--"

"--has his own agenda for everything he does, I know. But he's been treating me nice, and I like it when people treat me nice."

"I'm calling a meeting on the bridge. As a crew, we have some issues to resolve."

"Everybody else is giving you grief too?" Harper asked sweetly.

Dylan just looked more tired.

Harper continued, "And here I thought we were on vacation...."

Dylan sighed. "Andromeda, open a ship-wide comm to the crew."

  


* * *

On the bridge, Dylan paced in front of the crew. They looked back at him belligerently. When Tyr arrived he walked right over to Harper and handed him one of his tools. "You left this in my room last night," Tyr said.

Harper hooked it into his belt and tried to keep a straight face. "Thanks."

Dylan asked, sounding hurt, "Why are you all insane? One at a time please."

Beka snarled, "I hope you know enough to figure out why Harper's insane."

Dylan pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "Yes. I've been needlessly cruel, and I'm sorry."

Lapping up whatever small Dylan suffering he could see, Harper really couldn't trust himself to say anything, so he just crossed his arms and said nothing. Beka put her hand on his shoulder.

Hologram Rommie said, "I am a warship. I have neither the programming nor the expertise to be ferrying the captain's women around like a pleasure barge."

"Nor the inclination," android Rommie muttered behind Harper's head.

"The captain's...." Dylan shook his head. "How about you, Trance? Was my decision to bring Molly aboard a factor that created the dark future you're from?" He still sounded kind of snotty.

"I don't think it is. I'm just interested because some aspects of this situation are entertaining. Some of your actions I just find inexplicable."

Tyr said, "This 'vacation' is not agreeing with me. I have read all my books, and not even I can exercise every minute of the day. I'm so bored I may soon be fucking Harper as a relief from it."

Harper snorted so hard he nearly shot his sinuses out his nose, then doubled over laughing. When he started to recover, he got a look at Dylan's dumbfounded and horrified face, which just set him off again. "Oh, this hurts. I think I broke something."

Beka said, "As your second in command, I have a problem with our current course of action. What happened to establishing the Commonwealth and fighting the Magog? How could you go out there looking for weapons to do all that and come back saying we should take a three-week break?"

"I felt that we were due for a vacation," Dylan said, looking like he was still trying to recover from what Tyr had said. The looks he kept shooting at Harper and Tyr definitely suggested that.

"Dylan, we are a high-strung group of people. You can't expect us to take a vacation while on the ship with nothing to do _but_ vacation and not get rambunctious. While on the _ship_. We really need to get to a Commonwealth signatory world and get away _now_, and you know it's bad if I'm asking to go down-world. Harper, for example, physically cannot restrain himself from repairing and tinkering as long as he's on the Andromeda, so he's actually not taking a vacation at all since he's still doing his job. As if it's not bad enough that you've already been needlessly cruel to him, as you admitted yourself. Are you nuts?"

"So this is all Molly's fault?"

"Nah," Harper answered, "she's nice. Hell, I'd give her a go when you're done with her. She just doesn't belong here with us."

"Speaking of our guest," Rommie said, "she's found the bridge and is approaching the door. Shall I open it?"

Dylan sighed. "Yes, please."

Molly, looking somehow uncertain and resolute all at once, remained in the doorway and said, "Hi. When you're all done, I'd really appreciate having a talk with you, Dylan." It surprised Harper when her gaze settled on him and turned sad. "We have some things to discuss."

"Are we done here?" Dylan asked. "I think you've all been... admirably open in voicing your concerns."

"We're done," Beka answered.

"Dismissed." Dylan walked away with a look of foreboding on his face and joined Molly.

"Looks like trouble in paradise," Beka said with a smirk.

Harper was just sick of it all. He needed something to take his mind off. Literally. But that would kill him, so no. Then he asked, "Hey, Beka, do we still have our Tag gear? After all, I don't want Tyr to get so bored that he'll be forced to fuck me."

She raised an eyebrow at him, but said, "Yeah. Hey, that might be a good idea."

"I was never very good at it before," Trance said, though the gleam in her dark eyes suggested that she figured she was better now.

"What is this?" Tyr asked.

"A battle game, but without the maiming and killing," Harper replied.

"Then where's the fun?"

"Ha, ha. It's good exercise. We have guns that shoot harmless light rays and wearable sensors that beep when you get hit or 'killed.' Give it a try. You'd probably like paintball better--I do--but having small stain capsules exploding inside the ship wouldn't make Rommie happy."

"Understood."

"We need to decide how much of the ship we're using. The Andromeda Acendant's so huge that we could hide from one another forever."

"Thank you," Rommie said.

"I'd give you a gun too, Rom doll, but it wouldn't be fair to us."

Rommie beamed harder. "You really are cute when you're complimenting me shamelessly."

"Anybody have anything against Deck 17?" Beka asked. "No? Then prepare to have your asses kicked."

Harper snorted. "I guess that answers my question on whether we're doing this as teams or having a free-for-all."

"The conduits are off limits."

"Hey! Way to take away my edge."

  


* * *

The Andromeda Ascendant didn't have even a fraction of the Maru's possibilities for cover, so they all shot at one another from around the corners of the intersections, occasionally darting at a run for the next one, shouting taunts and insults all the way. Trance kept doing this airborne wireworks routine, flipping around, and her aim had improved _a lot_ in her new body. Tyr looked dead serious except for the light in his eyes, while Beka had an expression on her face that looked like what Harper felt: breathless, cutthroat glee.

Even without the conduits, Harper did well for himself, getting in shots at angles people didn't expect, occasionally crouching down or moving around on his knees to make it harder for the others to get a hit off the sensors on his torso. He was so good on his knees, yet Dylan had still thrown him over. Go figure.

Suddenly Tyr made a running break, bullet freight train style, for Harper's intersection, zigzagging so nobody could get a good shot on him. This couldn't be good. Harper did a fake dodge to the left, then slid to the right, shooting all the way, using all the flexibility and speed he had to get out of the way. For a weird moment his brain went back to their time in the corridors fighting the Magog, only then he'd been moving around to cover Tyr and Tyr had been grabbing him to get him moving. In the here and now, Tyr was damned big and close enough at times that his locks whipped across Harper's hands....

"Enough!" Dylan shouted suddenly. They all stopped and turned to look at him. He seemed to be nearing hysterical laughter. "You're on vacation... and you're running through the hallways shooting at things. Do you even understand the concept of 'vacation'?"

"This is fun and educational," Beka said. "What's up?"

"At Molly's request, we'll now be going straight to Mobius to drop her off at the academy."

Wow. Just... wow. _Good_ kid, that Molly. Tyr nudged Harper; Harper nudged back while hungrily watching Dylan's tired, somber face, the angel and devil on Harper's shoulders fighting it out to decide his response.

Beka appeared to be struggling not to smile. "It's not something we did, right?"

"She says that you've all been courteous and friendly to her. Especially Harper." Dylan sighed. "This is probably for the best anyway. As you were. I... have arrangements to make." Dylan left.

"Don't you dare start feeling sorry for him, Harper," Beka said once he'd gone.

"What?" Harper asked. "C'mon, I don't even know what I feel yet."

"I have to admit, and I never thought I'd say this, but I'm impressed with Molly."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind for blackmail purposes, boss."

"Are we going to continue playing?" Trance asked.

"I'm game," Beka said.

"You guys keep on going. I'm so distracted now that you'll all take advantage of me if I stay in." Harper snorted when Beka licked her lips. "Now that's just workplace harassment, and I don't have to take it. Good night, all."

  


* * *

The body pinning him to the bed was hard and powerful, but the touches were slow, gentle, maddening: light stroking hands, the whisper of Tyr's locks across Harper's sensitized skin, a slight press of the bone spurs. Not enough.

Feeling dangerous, Harper clenched his fingers into claws as he stroked Tyr's firm ass. "Stop teasing me to death," he hissed.

"I could break you," Tyr rumbled.

"I can take it," Harper shot back, his voice deeper than usual, thick with sex.

He grunted happily as Tyr fisted his cock just roughly enough.

Harper woke up alone, sticky and stunned, dry-mouthed. What the--

Dreams were really symbolic, right? It seemed like just about everything in them supposedly meant sex, so sex itself had to mean something entirely different, something entirely not sex, right?

Right?

"Oh, fuck me," he muttered. Yeah, like that would solve anything.

  


* * *

After another night of not enough sleep, Harper felt raw and dazed. And he would never, ever be able to look Tyr in the eye again, which would be a problem. After another shower and his breakfast, things seemed a little better, less fraught. Okay, the dream was embarrassing, but it was a dream, just his confused brain taking a piss with him. It meant nothing.

Besides, with their height difference it wasn't like Harper spent much time looking Tyr in the eye anyway.

When he opened the door, he saw Molly approaching him. Even somber, she looked cute. Watching a cute, softer version of Beka kept blowing Harper's mind, but he persevered. "Hey, Molly. Wanna come in?"

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm about to disembark for the academy. I just came by because I wanted to let you know something."

"Okay, sure."

"I never would have done any of this if I'd known about you and Dylan. And you were ill too! But there you were escorting me around the ship anyway. Did Dylan put you up to it?" She sounded ticked off on his behalf. It was sweet.

"No. It was all me."

"Well, good. Now that I know what's going on, I couldn't stay here, flaunting myself, for three weeks."

Harper smiled at her. "You're one of the good ones, you know?"

She smiled back. "Thanks. You know, you don't have to take anything like this from him just because he's the captain."

He almost laughed. "Oh, he'll hear about it. Don't worry."

"Even better."

"Knock 'em dead at the academy."

"Oh, I will." Molly took his hand and shook it. "Harper, as thrilled as I am that he gave me that recommendation--I wouldn't have gotten into the academy without it--I really think you should give Dylan hell." Then she walked away, a swing in her step.

Harper figured that she'd turn out just fine.

  


* * *

Harper was sitting on the obs deck, watching Mobius, when Dylan stopped to sit next to him. "Hi."

"Hey, Dylan." How are you doing? No sex dreams about Tyr here, no.

"I really screwed things up."

You think? "Yeah."

"Have I screwed things up past the point of fixing them?"

Harper took a deep breath. "I don't know. This really hurt, Dylan, and I have too much self-respect--believe it or not--to be your squeeze only when it's convenient for you, settling for whatever scraps of affection you feel like throwing my way, wondering if the next away mission will have you hooking up with some bimbo. I lived with months of uncertainty about my condition, and it really deeply sucked, so I'm not willingly doing it with my love life. And since you're you and semi-uncomfortable with the idea of a zipless fuck, sometimes you might bring your bimbos back to the ship and force us all to socialize with them for however long you decree. I felt _bad_ for Molly, okay?"

"I should have thought that one out better. A three-week cruise. I must have been insane."

"You were thinking with the wrong head, yeah."

Dylan looked a bit aggrieved. "I know I screwed up, but I think you're going a little too far."

"Am I? When we heard that you were tossing aside your quest to reestablish the Commonwealth, seemingly the whole reason for your existence, and gather allies against the Magog to vacation for three weeks with your girlfriend, we figured you lost your mind. Do you know how frightening it is to think that the guy who runs the ship, who's the only person our ship has total loyalty to, has lost his marbles?"

Dylan then took a deep breath. "I've been concerned about my stability myself lately, especially during the temporal distortions. At first I thought I might be losing my mind, snapping under the strain of what had happened to me. Then I was yelling at the distortions, commanding them to get me to bridge."

Damn. "That must have been scary."

"I was briefly back at the Nietzschean ambush of the Andromeda 300 years ago."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

"You know, I think I understand what happened with Molly."

"I'm sure you'll tell me." But Dylan sounded more tired than snotty. Though snottiness was in there too.

"This is penance, Dylan. After the hell you put me through, you can damned well listen to me theorize for a few minutes out of your life. Besides, you couldn't outbitch me on the best day of your life. The Molly thing wasn't just about the almost-dying lust reaction. Back in your time, being High Guard got you all kinds of goodies and respect."

"What does this have to do with Molly?"

"Getting there, thank you. People heard you were a High Guard captain and just started kowtowing without even knowing who you were as a person, saluting, doing things for you, looking up to you. You come ahead 300 years in the future, and your High Guard captaincy suddenly means squat. Your crew demands that you prove yourself to them instead of just bowing down at the sight of your uniform, and they refuse to abide by all the High Guard bells and whistles. If they think you're wrong, they tell you, in great detail. Most everybody else is exactly the same way. You're in an unfamiliar universe that feels like it's out of your control.

"So this perky little blonde suddenly presents herself, and she's young enough to still have a starry-eyed love of adventure and dashing idealists. She looks up to you and doesn't know you well enough to feel like she should question you. You show off for her all Big Daddy Smooth with a letter of recommendation to get her into the military academy and a three-week cruise in your bad-ass spaceship. She's suitably impressed. Then you get to drop her off at the academy before her shiny newness wears off or things get too serious. She's not like your engineer, who almost died recently, who tells you off if he thinks you need it, who's around every day, and who expects things of you. She's a cute little fantasy with a nice ass. And I keep wondering if you realize that she's a perkier, more malleable version of Beka, because I saw it immediately."

"Uh."

"Guess not. I felt bad for Molly, being thrown in with this crew to sink or swim while we were all resenting the hell out of her for inspiring you to throw aside all our plans without asking us. She's too young."

"I'm older than everyone, Harper," Dylan said sadly.

"There are times when I'm older than you, Dylan."

Dylan looked away. "Where do we go from here?"

"There's a big loss of trust. Beka and I will be keeping a more careful eye on you from now on. Rommie will be pissed at you for some time to come. Tyr will revise his mental diagrams of your behavior. Don't know what Trance'll do."

"That wasn't exactly what I meant."

"I know."

"I'm not expecting you to just--" Dylan trailed off, his hands moving as if that might help bring up the words he needed.

"You hurt me really badly. I was almost happy for the first time in _months_, and then you lowered the boom on me. I don't trust you anymore; I don't trust your promises anymore."

"I never promised that we would be--"

"Exclusive? Dylan, you keep holding up the 'we never said we were exclusive' thing as a shield, but I know there has to be more going on here than that. You can't even begin to earn back my trust until you give me some idea what the hell you have going through your brain."

Dylan sighed. "I think I wanted to be normal for a while, take a vacation from myself and my mission and everything connected to them."

"You will never be normal, not while you're captain of the most powerful warship in the known worlds. It gives you responsibilities and.... What the hell have you done to me, anyway? Responsibility. Gah."

Dylan snorted and smiled a little.

"Okay," Harper said. "But, you know, we have a standard of living here totally out of the range of most people alive today. Even with people shooting at us. People have been shooting at me all my life, but before I mostly lived in holes in the ground. Or on the Maru."

"I was losing control before. You're right about my problem partly being a control thing."

"I'm shocked."

"The people I'd loved were ripped away from me: Rhade through his own betrayal, Sara and everyone else I'd ever known through time. I almost lost all of you to the Magog Worldship, and then I almost lost you to the larvae. I'd fallen in love with you."

"That last bit sounds _so_ terrible."

Dylan kept on going. "My feelings were so damned intense, and I came so close to having to kill you myself to stop something worse from happening to you. I couldn't deal with it, with how fragile it all was."

Dylan had a great talent for flattering and backhanding you in the face at the same time. "Making the time ripe for a bit of fast, flippant fun with the first cute blonde who showed up, thus regaining command of your life and bed?"

Dylan looked deeply uncomfortable. "I'm not exactly proud of myself."

"Makes me glad I didn't move in with you. Getting kicked out so you could install Molly would have really hurt."

"I would never have done that!"

"So this three-week cruise thing was my fault for making it easier for you to cut me out?"

"No! Harper, I miss you."

That hit deep. "I miss you too. A lot. But I can't just close my eyes, bend over, and grab my ankles, especially not since I don't know if you'll be Captain Kirking your way around the known worlds with anyone who catches your eye."

"Sara and I... we weren't monogamous. She didn't expect it of me. She did know that I loved her."

Thanks again, Sara, you bitch. "What, she didn't expect monogamy because you were a traveling High Guard captain with a Nietzschean fuckbuddy onboard? No wonder you miss the Commonwealth. Besides, she didn't travel with you the way I do."

"Harper, I'm not holding us to two different standards. If you want someone else, you can feel free."

"You're going to give me the Captain Terrific magic that makes people fling themselves at you? You've seen my success rate, so you know I'm pretty much yours by default. Besides, I don't do one-nighters well. I fall in love too quickly, and I need to feel appreciated back. Making me feel just convenient won't do it for me."

"You have never been convenient."

"Oh, ha, ha."

"There's nothing I can say, is there?" Good ratio on the sadness to snottiness, with sadness winning out by a large margin.

"Not really. You'll have to do things. Actions, not words. 'Cause, you know, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times...." Harper shook his head.

"The cruise, Molly... even by my own thinking I did it all badly. Let me make it up to you. We'll all vacation after all because I promised one--though we'll do it for a shorter period of time since you've all proven how insane downtime can make you--but you get to choose the world." Dylan had a spark of hope in his eyes.

If Harper wanted to, he could extinguish it in three seconds. Instead, he shot back a flippant "Trying to buy me, Dylan?"

"Maybe."

"It's a good start. How many days are we getting?"

"Five?"

"That might be good. Let me get everybody else in on this. Try to make everybody as content as possible."

"That sounds wise."

"Great. Let's call a vacation meeting."

  


* * *

Harper kept shooting covert glances at Tyr as Dylan told everybody about his intentions for their revised vacation, but it really wasn't bad. Tyr couldn't read his mind, and he didn't die of embarrassment or anything. Besides, Tyr not being naked made a lot of things easier.

When Beka asked if anybody had any trouble with Harper choosing their vacation spot, nobody did, not even Tyr, so Harper felt even more of a duty to decide on someplace everybody could like. "Rommie, give me a list of war-free worlds that have activities we could all go for. I, personally, need some surfing."

"Compiling."

Plugged in, Harper watched the possibilities fly past. "Wait! Stop! The Barretts will be performing there?"

"In three days' time they will be performing at the city of Rigol, which also offers surfing."

"Gotta love Sio and Shane. They got the Mississippi in their blood and prefer water nearby. And I know some members of Rigol's surfing community from the competitions at Infinity Atoll."

"'Show'?" Dylan asked.

"Short for 'Siobhan,'" Harper answered. The two Siobhans he'd known never had good luck on Earth, but at least this one had survived and escaped.

"Great," Beka said. "Bolt down your belongings and hide your sons and daughters, the Electric Mayhem is reunited. Obscure cultural in-jokes incoming."

"Records on the Barretts make no mention of 'Electric Mayhem,' but the records on Siobhan's prosthetic arm mention 'SZ Harper' as one of its designers," Rommie said.

"Prosthetic arm?" Dylan asked. "Harper, can you just give some background so I don't keep repeating things back as questions?"

Harper warmed up to one of his favorite topics. "Sio and Shane are musicians. They got off Earth through Wayists as an asylum thing after Sio was sport-maimed by a Dragan." When Tyr hrrmmphed, Harper answered, "Hey, you hate the Dragans too."

"It's not uncommon for Nietzscheans to punish theft by removing a hand," Tyr said, with a tone that suggested that the miscreants deserved that and more.

"Yeah, but they do it as a public exhibition to show the kludges who's boss. One chop down at the wrist, then cauterize the wound and throw the poor bastard into the crowd. What was done to Sio was a private, 'for fun' thing and took most of her natural arm below her right elbow. This was three sloppy blows with an ax, and she has corresponding scars on her hip and thigh. The guy's Nietzschean buddies kept sneering that he was a wuss for needing three shots."

Dylan looked upset and a bit nauseated. Well, good. Tyr looked more bored, which usually meant that he'd satisfied himself and had no trouble with everybody continuing to blabber around him.

Harper continued, "Since she's a guitarist, it was highly important for her to get an arm again, but at the time they didn't have much money, so they ruled out putting skin or pseudoskin over the prosthesis. Skin needs a nourishing endo-layer to keep it looking good, plus it's delicate work matching up the skin tone even through cell cloning and avoiding the look of a seam where it reaches the remaining arm. Skin tone and seams were also a problem for pseudoskin. A good skin job costs a lot of money. Besides, nobody knew if either skin would callus right, and she didn't want to spend a lot only to rip her fingertips off playing. As a result, she said to hell with looking natural and went for bare metal and multi-purpose. The arm has two ports and enough functions aside from being an arm that it makes _me_ drool. Her ideas for what she wanted were so cool that the Perseids at the All Systems University kicked a lot of stuff in gratis just so they could work on them."

"How did you come in?" Dylan asked.

"One of the humans involved wanted it to be pretty too, even with the ports and exposed moving parts. When the Maru pulled in with an engineer from Earth on it--that would be me--the design party pounced. They went into ecstasies hearing me talk--_that_ was cool--figuring that we even came from the same place on Earth."

"You didn't?"

"Not even close. You know how far New Orleans is from Boston? No? Well, I don't either, but it's far, far away. Anyway, the Irish from there sound something like folks from New England to the uninformed."

"Uh-huh."

"I mean, it's like people think Earth is this small town where everybody knows everybody else. If you ask me if I know, say, Joe Dick from Vancouver, I'm gonna have to say no, okay?"

"Harper," Beka said to bring the conversation back on track. She knew that once he got started on this topic, he could go for a while.

"Okay. Well, anyway, it was my idea to incorporate the design of her necklace onto the surface of the arm to make it useful and decorative. Swirls, colored enamels, like cloisonné... you gotta see it."

"It's famous," Beka said.

Harper continued, jazzed, "Plus I suggested a Faraday weave to protect against EM blast damage and... well, you don't need to know about the other thing. Trade secret. So seeing Sio any time I can is part professional courtesy. Her music's great too. Even if Shane hates me. Long story. He likes Beka, though."

Beka smirked.

"We have to go there," Harper said. "Plus, the city has shops, restaurants, libraries, clubs, gardens, and gyms. Fun for the whole family. Warm, temperate climate too."

"Any objections?" Dylan asked. "No? Then it seems that we have our destination."

  


* * *

Packed and just about ready to go, Harper sat down and said goodbye to Rommie. They'd be taking the Maru down to the planet, leaving the Andromeda in a camouflaging asteroid field. "I could come back and visit if you get lonely," Harper said. Even Rommie's avatar had insisted on going with them, leaving ship Rommie entirely to herself. Or, rather two of her selves, since the hologram form and motherboard form seemed to have slightly different personalities, but still.

"It's only a few days. Don't worry about me."

"Wish I could take you surfing with me."

"I'm sure you'll tell me all about it when you come back and eventually I'll want to shut you up."

"You sweet talker."

"Go. Surf, party, wreak havoc on the native populace."

"You've been talking to Beka again, haven't you?"

Andromeda smirked. "A little. She mentioned your public lewdness citation, too."

Harper waggled his eyebrows. "I could do a dramatic reenactment of it."

"Go, before I have one of my drones knock you out cold and carry you onto the Maru."

"Thoughts of you will keep me even warmer on those warm Rigolian nights, my dommy Rommie."

  


* * *

As soon as they reached the spaceport and put their parking rights in order, Harper plugged into and Rommie linked to the traveler's database and compiled maps and attractions for everybody. According to records, the Exile hadn't touched down yet, so he'd have to wait a while to meet up with Sio. ETA was so often useless, but he checked it anyway. He downloaded only what he wanted directly into his cranial database, sighing over all the useless junk and redundancies the traveler's aid programming had attached to it. Somebody really should let them know that if they streamlined it they would increase their processing power, and that somebody who let them know might do some weeding and charge a little clean-up fee as a freelance quality enforcer....

Nah, he was on vacation. "Will we be sleeping on the Maru 'cause we're cheap?" Harper asked.

"Pretty much," Dylan said.

"Unless we make other arrangements," Beka said with a gleam in her eyes.

"I don't know what you guys'll be doing, but I'm hitting the beach to be at one with the surf," Harper said.

"Remember to put on your sunblock. I don't want to have to watch your skin peel off for the next few days."

"Already done, Mom."

Board under his arm, Harper raced through the streets, breathing deep and enjoying the way the morning sunshine caressed everything around him. Sunset should be spectacular. He felt a bit chilly, but chilly was all right since he didn't want to become one of those wusses who couldn't cut it outside the regulated environment of a ship or habitat. Sunlight, sky overhead, wind in his hair, real air, horizons.... How could Beka prefer being shut into a tin can over this?

When Harper finished changing into his bodysuit and stowed his currently unneeded gear in a locker, he saw Tyr and Rommie ambling around. Talk about odd couples. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"What's the purpose of surfing?" Rommie asked while looking out at the ocean. Nobody was out there yet since it was so early and most waveriders slept in.

"Exercise, fun. It's a test of flexibility, strength, skill, balance, and strategy against the ocean or other surfers. It's a rush. You can stay and watch for a while if you wanna, but I won't be coming back to shore for a while, so...."

"I just wanted to see it."

Tyr, who at least was wearing something more sensible than the mail shirt, crossed his arms and gave Harper a challenging yet amused look. Maybe he wanted proof of this being exercise and thus _not_ entirely silly to Nietzscheans. Whatever.

Running across the white sand felt like running on down pillows, soft and cool. As Harper paddled out he could see to the bottom of the ocean through the clear blue, blue water. _Cold_ water, but it helped wake him up. He was a bit awkward at first, making him very glad that he came out this early before everyone showed up, but his muscles soon remembered what they had to do. Spending so much time in boots made him forget how useful his feet really were. Once everything went online and started working, it was a blast. Sheer paradise.

Eventually hunger drove him back to the shore... where Dylan waited, but not even Dylan could break through the glee he had going. "Did you bring me lunch?" he asked Dylan.

"I'm your captain, not your caterer." But Dylan sure looked hungry, too.

Oh, right. Harper's midnight blue bodysuit may have left only his hands, feet, and head uncovered, but it clung to him so closely that Beka claimed she could see his pulse while he wore it. Play with this or not?

Play. He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes and stepped closer into Dylan's space. "You said you wanted to try to buy me. Lunch would help."

Dylan breathed in deep, as if to smell him. Right, ocean water on him. "I could have you for lunch?"

There were so many ways, some of them dirty, that question could be read that Harper couldn't help laughing. "Define 'have.'"

"Define 'lunch.'"

"Well--"

"Haitch! My God!" a too familiar voice yelled.

Aw, shit. Dammit.

"You know this woman?" Dylan asked.

"Unfortunately," Harper muttered.

Yahya ran up to them, her fiery red hair flying in the wind, her suit accentuating her luscious curves. A real beauty... as long as she didn't open her mouth and start talking and talking at you. Independently wealthy, she did the beach bum thing on several worlds as her life and felt completely confident that no matter what she said people would still have to associate with her. She hadn't been proven wrong yet. Tallien followed more sedately in her wake, her ever-present male shadow. Tallien had a dark-eyed, honey-skinned beauty; Yahya wouldn't spend so much time with someone whose features didn't complement hers.

One time Beka had bet Harper that he couldn't sleep with Yahya. He'd won that bet and then demanded double the money since he'd slept with Tallien too. Being Beka, she'd tried to use that as an excuse to pay him only half of what she owed him. He got his money in the end, mostly after he told her how he'd done it and divulged that Yahya actually shut up during and after sex while Tallien started talking.

"Haitch!" Yahya grabbed him into a tight hug, which put his head into her breasts. "It's been ages."

"Smothering here," Harper gasped out.

"Sorry. Tee and I just haven't seen you for so long."

Tallien rolled his eyes, then gave him a rueful look. Even after the pillow talk, Harper still didn't know why Tallien stayed with her. Hell, how Tallien could stand to listen to her all the time.

"Who's this?" she asked while eating Dylan up with her eyes. She'd better watch it if she wanted to keep them.

"This is my other, newer captain, Dylan Hunt. You will not call him 'Dee.' Dylan, this is Yahya Jingkai and Tallien Sullerot, members of the local surfing community and old competitors of mine."

"Pleased to meet you," Dylan said, with his "oh-kaaay" look on his face.

"Haitch, you told me that Beka wouldn't let me call her 'Bee,' but I do."

"Someday you're going to have a mysterious accident, Yahya. It won't be traced to Beka, but she'll be laughing her ass off like the evil mastermind she is." Until then, Beka dulled the edge of her anger by calling Yahya "Why."

"Never happen. Hey, Dee, is Haitch like this everywhere?"

Dylan winced but asked, "Like what?"

"You know, excitable, flexible...." She gave the "ex" in "flexible" three syllables and a quick flick of her tongue across her bottom lip.

"He uses my ship as his personal jungle gym."

"Hey," Harper said, "standing right here."

"I'm having a little get-together tonight at 10," Yahya purred. "Everybody's going to be there, and a lot of them would like to meet you. You can bring your two captains along if you like, especially since they're both so pretty."

Lunch. All he'd wanted was lunch. And maybe Dylan crawling through broken glass before being allowed to eat out of his hand. It wasn't that much to ask.

But the party might still be worthwhile if he could avoid Yahya most of the time.

"We'll think about it," Dylan said. "Right now I have to take Harper away for some important ship's business. You'll have to excuse us."

"Of course." She smiled. "I forget sometimes that people have to work."

"See ya," Harper said as he put his board under his arm and followed Dylan away for a bit, then muttered, "Thank God." He forgot sometimes how handy Dylan was at diplomatic lying.

Dylan smiled, pleased. "Thank me."

"Thank you, but you're still not god. You're not even a demi-god."

"I'm working on it. Where do you want to go for lunch?"

"Somewhere on the beach. Otherwise I have to change, then after lunch I'll have to change back. But do I have to go to my locker to get some money?"

"You said I should take care of it, I didn't say no, so I will."

"Oooh, that's a precedent you're gonna regret. Hey! Jerked chicken!"

Dylan grinned but said, "It's a shack. No, I think calling it a 'shack' is an insult to shacks everywhere."

"It's on the beach, and it has jerked chicken. C'mon, it's food cooked in a steel drum. Be glad I don't have champagne tastes." Harper grabbed Dylan's wrist and dragged him over.

Sitting down on a rickety chair with his food, Harper zoned out on how perfect the day was, with its clear blue sky, clear blue water, powdery fine sand between his toes, complicated scent of sun and ocean and spices, warm vitamin D-bestowing sunlight on his skin, and soft rush of the ocean nearby. This couldn't be part of his life.

Good jerked chicken too, though the texture of the meat suggested that it wasn't really chicken at all, maybe a poultry variant, a local stray pet, or something vat grown. As long as he didn't have to know, he didn't care, and nobody had to tell Dylan. Besides, like so many things, it tasted like chicken. Not that the chicken taste mattered much as the hot tang of the spicy sauce started to build up in his mouth and overwhelm it.

He never would have dared eating anything this fiery while on the serum, but now he could chow down as much as he liked. In fact, once he finished the pseudo chicken he started to lick and suck the excellent sauce and spices off his fingers.

He had his right thumb in his mouth up to the last knuckle when he realized that Dylan was staring intently, hungrily, at him, following every movement of his finger between his lips. He got hard watching Dylan watch him. Heart pounding, but unable to resist, he slowly pulled his thumb from his mouth and swirled his tongue over its tip. Dylan's eyes followed it, and his napkin fell from his fingers. Power. This was power.

Harper licked his lips. "I'm a barbarian," he said, his voice soft and low.

"I like it."

"That's good, because it's not going to change."

"Mmm."

Dylan was leaning forward, and it was a small table. Harper felt Dylan's spicy breath near his face, then Dylan kissed the side of his mouth, licking a little. "How does the ocean taste to you?" Harper asked, slightly shaky.

"Watching you out there.... Beka told me that you surfed and were good, but I didn't expect you to be like this. You were in your element, wet and sleek like a seal." Dylan's hand stroked over the slick material of Harper's sleeve, making it feel a bit like his bodysuit was stroking him.

"Is that supposed to be complimentary?"

"I couldn't take my eyes off you."

Okay, _that_ was much easier to read. "So you want me."

"I thought that was obvious."

"I'm not... I'm not that easy." Even as his body was screaming, "Yes, you are!" He refused to be struck stupid with lust like this, so he stood up and removed his arm from Dylan's grip. "I have to go. Dylan, I have to go. This is too soon."

Dylan sat back in his seat. "All right. But I'm not going to give up."

"Then you may have a chance someday. Just not now." It was hard walking away from Dylan. Literally.

Right before he went back to surfing, he needed to let Beka know about that party. Having her there too, knowing that she might be watching, would make him feel a bit stronger resisting Dylan if he showed up there. Using the comm the nanos had put under his skin, he called Beka. "Hey."

"Seamus!" Pissed off. Which probably meant that he was interfering with her nookie.

"Fast thing. Why's having a party at 10, and you're invited. Usual place. Dylan may be showing up."

"Got you. _Goodbye_, Harper."

Smirking, he wondered if her partner had heard his end of the call.

  


* * *

Hours and a spectacular sunset later, Harper dragged his aching self to the lockers and then the showers. Good aches, though, and washing up would perk him up. Still in his suit, he turned on the spray and let it wash him down.

"Are you the waverider I'm looking for?" a deep, but female voice asked with a musical accent.

Harper turned to see a stunning looking being standing right outside his shower cubicle. A gold wrap contrasted beautifully with her gleaming blue-black skin, dark eyes, and lustrous braided hair, each braid also capped with gold.

"I really hope so," he answered.

She smiled, flashing white teeth. "Oh, you are. Excellent." Then she stepped into the cubicle with him.

"Hey, you're gonna get all wet. What are you--" He had to stop talking when she kissed him, pressing him against the wall. She even tasted good, kind of like cinnamon and sugar.

"Am I welcome in here?" she asked.

"Oh yeah."

"I am Oriya Ala Nerijidan. Fire's stone, heat, strength."

"I'm Harper, Seamus Zelazny. Musician, supplanter, guy who wrote science fiction."

"I like you, little one." She unfastened his suit and reached in, making him gasp. "Oh, not little at all."

"Uh, I like you too." Was he really being molested in a shower stall by a beautiful woman?

She kissed him again. "I'll see you later, musician."

"What?"

"At the party. You'll see me again." She let him go with a final caress and backed out of the stall.

Slower and less graceful, partly from hanging out of his suit, Harper poked his head out but couldn't see any sign that she'd ever been there. The tracks of water on the floor could have been from anyone. _This_ was more like his life.

Still, wow. How many times did he get to be a coveted sex object? Putting his head back inside the stall, he jerked off so he could get on with his evening, which might or might not contain a further sighting of an exotic tease.

  


* * *

"I hate her," Beka muttered as they left the Maru.

"Everybody with any sense does," Harper answered.

"The only reason I'm going is to offer some support to you, you know."

"No, you're going for support and to pick up a sleek, pretty surfer or two for yourself."

She smirked. "Go ahead. Scoff at my sacrifice."

"Don't sweat it. We have similar ideas of altruism. I didn't, uh, break up you and your special friend earlier, did I?"

"At that point I could have started to speak in tongues and he wouldn't have lost focus."

"You know I hate it when you make me imagine you having sex with anyone but me."

"You love the abuse."

"Only from you, boss."

Even if they hadn't known the place, they could have found it through the pounding music that they could feel and hear from blocks away. Yahya greeted them at the door, for once Tallien-free. "Hey, Bee, glad you could make it!"

Beka winced. "Harper told me I had to come."

"He really is a sweetie. Look at the both of you dressed in tight black. How cute! You know, Bee, when I first heard that you were working under someone else now, I really didn't know what to think. I mean, you spent years talking about how great it was to be independent, your own captain. But having seen your captain...." Yahya fanned herself. "I get the whole thing about working under him."

Harper grabbed Beka's gun hand, even though she hadn't brought her gun for fear of the temptation. He gave Yahya a big, fake smile. "She's got a hard-on for his ship, and so do I. Hey, I see somebody." He dragged Beka inside and sighed in relief as more arriving guests captured Yahya's attention.

"She's begging for an accident," Beka muttered directly into his ear, competing with the roar of the music, "and I'm not sure if I can wait two years for the next Infinity competition to watch you take her out."

"One of those freak surfing accidents?" Harper said back into hers. "And when did I become your assassin?"

"No one would suspect you for her murder."

Beka mellowed a little the further they got inside. It could have been the weed smoke drifting through the air or the lazy heat of having so many bodies concentrated in one place. Various people patted or stroked Harper's arm and back as he walked by, about usual for how touchy-feely this group got. One of the many pretty girls handed him a drink and gave him a peck on the cheek before twirling away giggling.

"Ooh, pretty," Beka said suddenly, facing a different direction.

God, Beka's taste in men sucked. "Him? Beka, he's dumber than mud but thinks he's a genius. And he knows he's gorgeous. I'm surprised we can all fit in here with him and his ego. He's really boring too."

"I didn't say I was going to talk to him."

"Oh yeah, treat him like a total piece of meat. He might like it."

"What's his name, though? That always helps."

"His name is Cory something or other. When he came in #40 at the last competition, he whined that he caught some freak undertow around Dallan's Rock that screwed him up."

She beamed. "Thanks. It gets their interest if you know something about them and pretend that you give a damn."

"You think I don't know that?"

She grabbed him by the shoulders. "Harper, have a good time. That's an order."

"Yes, ma'am. Have fun with the pretty shiny."

Beka danced away, intent on the chase. Harper tried to scan the crowd for Dylan or the mystery woman, but couldn't see past all the people dancing and wandering around in knots. He saw lots of people he kind of knew, but no-- Then he noticed Tallien standing by himself in the doorway, drink in hand, watching everything with a wry expression. Maybe Tallien could give him some insight.

"Hey."

Tallien nodded his head in greeting.

Harper said into his ear, "C'mon, I know you can talk. I need to find out something, and you're the guy who goes everywhere, sees everybody, and listens to everybody while Yahya talks."

Tallien smiled and took a sip of his drink.

"I'll keep talking until you answer, you know. I got a big mouth and bigger lungs. Look, while I was showering tonight, this really exotic, obsidian-skinned woman put the moves on me, just right there, in the stall, and told me she'd see me at the party. I never saw anybody or anything like her before, and I was wondering if anyone has."

Looking surprised, Tallien said, "That's Oriya," in that soft, hoarse, worn-out sounding voice Harper had only heard sparingly over a few hours, three years ago.

"Other people have seen her?"

"Yeah."

"What does she want?" When Tallien gave him an "you idiot" look, Harper actually blushed and said, "Okay. I guess she was pretty obvious when she put her hand down my suit."

"She's a local legend, and nobody ever has any complaints about her. She seems to pick out only a few people. Be complimented."

"If you put it like that, yeah. But, you know, does she suck the strength out of people or anything weird like that?"

Tallien looked like he was laughing, but no laughter sounds came out. "Only in that old-fashioned sex way. We don't know what she is, but she's never hurt anybody. Some of the local waveriders see her, uh, favors as lucky. Good things happened for them after. And during too, if you can believe them."

"Thanks. I gotta ask, why don't you talk?"

"Get personal much?" From the increasing raggedness to his voice, it started to sound like it physically hurt him to talk. Harper remembered that even last time Tallien had only said a little.

"Sorry. I really don't have to know."

"A Dragan punched me in the neck when I was about five. My vocal cords never recovered right. I'm from one of the slave worlds. You know how it is."

Everybody in the community knew Harper was from Earth. "Yeah, I do."

"Yahya bought me, then set me free."

Wow. Harper would have to revise his opinion of her a bit. But still.... "But now you have to listen to her talk."

Tallien almost horked up his drink, so Harper said, "Sorry, sorry. Thanks for straining yourself for me."

Tallien closed his eyes and nodded, then slowly ran his hand up Harper's arm, raising all the hairs. Oh. He stepped even closer--

"Tee! What have you been up to?" Yahya called.

Tallien pointed one finger at his cup.

"Oh. Okay. There are some people dying to meet you, Tee. Hey, Haitch."

Tallien nodded, then waved goodbye to Harper as he went to join her. Harper watched them go and wondered when the hell he'd suddenly become catnip. Damn, did Rigol have amenities.

One girl walked up to him and rubbed his arm. After what Tallien had done, her touch made him quiver a bit. "Hey, are you Harper?" she asked.

"Depends."

She grinned. "I saw you at Infinity Atoll. You do a mean ride."

"Thanks."

"I just wanted you to know. 'Bye." She walked off.

He had to be having the weirdest night of his life, and that was saying something. Then Oriya Ala Nerijidan walked out of a nearby room and approached him, giving him full confirmation. Yeah, he could live the rest of his life comforted by the idea that it probably wouldn't ever get weirder than this.

"I want to dance," she said. Now she had gold on her lips and eyelids too. "With you."

He put his drink down. "Okay."

She felt Rommie-solid in his arms, the skin of her hands in his smooth and immutable as polished stone. "Do you tango? Rumba?" he asked.

"I only move. I want you to move for me too." But she moved lightly and with grace to the music pounding through the walls and floor.

And he moved with her, trying not to rest his head on her breasts, trying not to notice that he could see through the gauzy gold wrap to her skin and that she had no nipples. Her hair in its braids seemed to be almost feeling him back, like they were other sense organs instead of just hair maybe. Okay, she was definitely alien, and just human seeming enough to make the alien things about her seem even stranger. But she was regal and beautiful and weird, and he liked her.

Since she didn't weigh as much as her almost stony exterior suggested, he dipped her and smiled as she laughed. Her cinnamony smell strengthened as they really got into it. He was vaguely aware that the people around them were clapping in time to the music and hooting.

With how closely they danced, he started to get almost painfully aroused. Her tongue rasped a little against his skin as she leaned down to lick the sweat off his cheekbone, spiking his lust higher. "I'm about to embarrass myself here," he gasped to her.

She took a deep whiff of him, then said, "Follow me."

As she pulled him away, the people nearest them started to applaud. When he looked back, he caught a glimpse of Dylan standing there, dead still. Before he could get a chance to react to that beyond an instinctive moment of "now you get an idea of what it feels like," he and Oriya had passed through the curtain into a dim room that smelled of and sounded like sex. He could see the vague, moving shapes of other people going at it.

Seeing as how she was so alien, he'd stopped assuming before that their dance would end in sex. Or at least in sex as he knew it. But suddenly it looked much likelier. And he wanted her, but did she even have her parts in the same places?

"Tell me what you like," Harper said.

She kissed him. "Sweet, sweet, ocean boy. You'll know. Take your shirt off for me." When he pulled his T-shirt off over his head, she put her warm, smooth hands on his chest and stroked down. "Pale, so pale," she said as she admired the contrast of her hands against his skin.

Yahya, the perfect host, had a box full of protection on a table nearby but when Harper reached for it, Oriya grabbed his wrist. "No, musician."

Harper tried to get his thinking back online for a conversation he never liked to have. "Fire's Stone, I have nanobots and a contraceptive implant, but I still have one of the worst immune systems ever. It might not be safe for either of us without a barrier--"

She stroked and kissed him in a gentling, soothing way. "I can't hurt you; you can't hurt me. We're safe." But then she rubbed herself against him, her gauzy wrap maddening against his bare chest. "I need to feel you. I need to taste you. It's all right."

Without really being aware of how it had happened, Harper found himself lying down on a couch. Amazingly, he could feel the music pounding through the couch too. "Too much clothing," Oriya muttered with a bit of a laugh in her deep voice as she unfastened his pants. "Better." Once she had him bare, his pants and underwear pulled down to his knees, she moved her wrap around a bit, then sank down onto his cock, wet and tight like any human woman. Which mean that she'd been wearing absolutely nothing under the gauze.

It pretty much ended any thinking he might have done.

He moaned as she clenched down on him, then leaned down to kiss and lick any bit of his skin she could get to, mouth, nipples, collarbones, nose, the inside of his elbows, his hairline, his fingertips.... The rasp of her tongue and the sweep of her hair on him set his nerves on fire. One-handed, she held his hands captive over his head, pinned to the couch. He couldn't move except to thrust.

Riding and devouring him, she kept him at a fever pitch, on the knife's edge, for what seemed like forever. Lost in a haze of sex, Harper really wondered if a person could explode into pulp from this kind of insane pleasurable frustration. "Oriya...." When she started to lick near his data port, he revived enough to shout, "Don't put your tongue on that! You'll fry."

She made a sound between a rumble and a sigh, then licked carefully around it. "Mmm. Metal and power. Earth boy, lightning boy, ocean boy...." At least she started to speed up her rocking on top of him. "Such pleasing sounds you make."

He was so close, so fucking close. "Oriya, let me... you have to let me...."

"Is it too much for you?" she purred.

Fuck the macho bullshit. "Yes!"

Harper saw a flash of her white teeth in the dimness, then her muscles _rippled_ tightly around his cock. He whited out. As he floated in a post-orgasm haze, he could feel her licking his cock clean, sending shooting sparks up his body. But he really didn't have anything left in him to do anything with that.

Finally she crouched near his head and stroked the line of his jaw. "You were delicious, beautiful. Thank you. I've never tasted anyone like you."

"Mmmm. You're beautiful too."

Oriya gave him one last cinnamon and sugar kiss, then draped his shirt--at least he thought it might be his shirt--over his chest and left him to doze. Somebody started to shake him. Harper opened his eyes to see a very worried and pissed off looking Dylan. It looked like Dylan wanted to keep shaking him even though he'd woken up already.

"Do you have anything you want to say, Mr. Open Relationship?" Harper asked as his brain came back.

"That... woman left ten minutes ago. When you didn't come out, I thought something might have happened to you."

Oh, yeah, Dylan was all about the nobility. Worried, not seething with jealousy. "Just sleeping it off. Did you time us?"

Dylan let go of him and walked out. Harper snorted and put his shirt back on. Thank Whomever that it really was his shirt, since he didn't think he could have found it in here. Oriya had also put his pants back on for him, making her one of the most considerate lovers he ever had. He felt great, energized.

When he walked back into the main room, the people nearest him hooted and slapped his back. Beka, hands on her hips, gave him a penetrating look that slowly turned into a smirky smile. "Nice show you put on there. You have, uh, smears of gold all over you," she said.

Made him wonder what his cock looked like right now.

"The gold plating makes it all last longer," Harper replied. Somebody grabbed him by the shoulders for a friendly hug/shake, while someone else put a drink in his hand. "What happened to Cory?" he asked.

"It looks like he never got chosen by her for nookie, so he left in a big sulk. He's an ass."

"Did I or did I not--"

"Yeah, yeah."

"The night's still young."

Beka suddenly licked near his hairline, making him shiver. Harper asked, "What is up with people and that tonight?"

"Wanted to see what the gold tasted like. Kind of like French toast. Yummy." She pointed her head toward the door. "If you care, Captain Terrific's sulking outside too."

"Actually, I do want to see him."

"To rub it in?"

"You're an evil, evil woman, Beka."

Yahya came up to him. "C'mon, tell us what she was like for you."

"Nope. Gentlemen never tell." The whole crowd booed him. "Jeez, people, rent some porn or something." He had a spring in his step as he walked outside.

Dylan leaned against the railing, looking at the ocean, admirably filling out his leather pants. Poor baby. Harper leaned against the railing next to him and stared too, but fidgeted. Damn, he was lit.

"That wasn't about you, you know," Harper finally said. "She wanted me, I wanted her, and it all came together. You had nothing to do with it. It's not even like we--as in you and I--have been going together lately. Not like I really have to justify myself to you."

His expression neutral, Dylan looked at him. "Harper, I want Trance to get a good look at you."

"Huh?"

"Your partner was a kind of alien we've never seen before, and your immune system sucks. I want to make sure you're safe."

Again with the supposed nobility. Dylan was concerned, not harassing him for jealousy's sake. Great. Still, he was curious.... "Okay."

"Okay?" Dylan looked like he'd been hit by a stun rod, obviously having expected Harper to put up a knockdown, drag-out fight.

Harper smirked. "Yeah, sure. Better to be safe, right? Just because I feel like I could take on the world right now doesn't mean I will later. Let me just tell Beka that I'm going."

"Sure."

Harper bounced into the room and caught Beka's eye. When he flashed her an "I'm going" hand gesture, she nodded and made a shooing gesture in answer. Harper returned to Dylan with a smile. "I'm all yours."

As they walked back to the Maru in a somewhat uncomfortable silence, Harper enjoyed the night, the lights, the people. Earth had been a lot like this once, and it deserved to be again. Of course, thinking this only reminded him of earlier grievances against Dylan. If he wanted to keep his buzz, he better knock it off for a while.

To his surprise, Trance seemed to be waiting for them when they reached the Maru. Then again, considering the things she did, maybe it wasn't so surprising. "What can I do for you, Dylan?" she asked.

Dylan suddenly seemed to be at a loss for words. Finding a clinical, dispassionate way of saying that you wanted to harass your ex for taking another lover had to be rough. It was fun to watch for about three minutes, but then became very annoying.

Harper finally said, "I had a sexual encounter with a kind of alien Dylan's never seen before, so he wants me to get a medical check-up. Other locals have been with her to no ill effect, but I'm special or something."

"Others? How do you know about others?" Dylan asked.

"Tallien told me."

"Tallien doesn't talk."

"Yeah, he does, though usually only after sex. I got him to talk to me tonight." As much fun as Harper had watching Dylan's expression over that one, he let Dylan off the hook by saying, "Tonight I got him to talk without doing him first."

Which placated Dylan until he realized that Harper had to have done Tallien at some point in the past to know that. Harper saw the exact moment the thought hit him.

"I see." The new Trance's smirk seemed smirkier than the original's had. "Follow me. Now sit. Take your shirt off."

Harper sat, but kept his shirt on. "What exactly are you going to do?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I've seen you fully naked before. It's no big deal."

"One, it is a big deal, thank you very much. Two, the other you saw me, and she had a nicer bedside manner." And she didn't use to wear tops that her breasts seemed ready to pop out the top of. It was very distracting watching the new Trance breathe, especially since her new skin coloring seemed to highlight them.

"Do I have to take it off for you?"

"Fine." He pulled it off. "Happy?" He noticed that Dylan was looking somewhere over his head instead of at him.

"Ecstatic. Oh, it looks like your nipples are gilded along with your lips. Nice marbleized effect elsewhere too." Trance passed a scanner over his whole body, which made him wonder why the hell she wanted his shirt off. Aside from the desire to make a comment about his nipples.

"She was very thorough with the kissing and licking. It's makeup from her lips," Harper said. "I thought it tasted like cinnamon and sugar, just like the rest of her seems to, while Beka said French toast, so we're about on the same wavelength."

"Why does Beka know what it tastes like?" Dylan asked, the smallest hint of hysteria in his voice.

Before Dylan got any pervy ideas about Beka and Oriya, Harper said, "Beka licked some off me." Okay, that still sounded kind of pervy, just in a different direction.

"At the hairline of your right temple," Trance said. "Thanks. I was wondering about the anomalous reading there. Did your partner penetrate you in any way?"

"No! And trust me, I'd know." Harper sighed. "You're scanning around that area anyway, aren't you?"

"Yes. And thank you for letting me know you ingested some of the makeup. Say 'ah.'"

"Why-- ow!" He'd only opened his mouth for a second, but she got that swab in and out that quickly. While he was busy being outraged over that, she stuck a needle in his arm and drew blood.

"Did you ingest anything else from her?"

Harper shot a look that could kill at Dylan, who looked embarrassed and sorry about the whole thing. Well, he should. "I kissed her skin and maybe sucked on her tongue a bit. I didn't go down on her."

Dylan gave good squirm.

"That's good to know." She took a thin sheet of something and pressed it against his chest in a particularly gold-smeared area, then removed it. Still sensitized, he shivered at her touch.

"Is that normal?" Dylan asked.

Trance just about rolled her eyes. "Dylan, this is how Harper is after he has sex. You _have_ had sex with him, haven't you?" Without waiting for an answer she handed a sheet of the stuff to Harper. "If you need privacy, you can go over there and do it. I don't think you want me to collect the most important sample we need _for_ you." She was looking at his groin.

"Dylan, I am going to fucking kill you," Harper said.

Dylan looked horrified. "I had no idea she'd--"

"Yeah, yeah. She's already drawn blood, so I might as well." Harper grabbed the sheet from her, found a dark corner behind some gear, and unfastened. Yeah, he had gold smeared there too. Of course he got hard again as he wrapped the sheet around his dick. Unwrapping didn't help. "Do you want a freaking sperm sample too?"

"Are you sure you want to tempt me?" she called back.

"No! I'm fine." Many unsavory thoughts later, he was finally able to tuck himself in, refasten, and walk out. "Here. Enjoy."

"Thank you." Even her sweet smile had something of an edge to it nowadays. She hummed to herself a little as she examined and compiled results. "Interesting. She didn't leave _any_ secre--"

"Trance, I'd like to hold onto _some_ of the magic. Could you just tell me if I'm okay or not?"

"You're fine. I found no diseases or foreign agents in your blood and no allergic reactions to anything. The makeup on your skin is harmless both topically and internally and easily wipes off, though I'm not sure why you'd want to since I think it's a very fetching look on you. Dylan, there's a very simple reason why Harper's skin is sensitive and his mood is elevated."

"And that would be?" Dylan asked.

"He just had sex."

Amused despite himself, Harper drummed a rim shot for her on the table.

"Now, I have to get going," Trance said. "I only came here because I didn't want to miss this." She left quickly, perhaps in an effort not to tempt Dylan into homicide.

"I'd say 'nyah nyah nyah nyah,' but I'm too mature," Harper said to Dylan. "If I'd known how big a passive-aggressive pain in the ass you can be, I might never have gotten involved with you."

Dylan had his hand over his eyes. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think this would involve..." he waved his other hand, "everything she did to you."

"One thing or another has sent me to so many clinics over the years that I don't squirm over this stuff as much as most people do. Watching _you_ squirm was almost worth it, though."

"I'm glad I could provide some entertainment while you were being poked and prodded."

"Yeah, I could have done without that, especially the poking." Having enjoyed watching Trance deliver that "you idiot" smackdown on Dylan, he felt less of a need to do one of his own. "Hey, thanks for the concern about my health, even though I know that a lot of your reasons for this were _far_ from altruistic."

Dylan leaned back against the wall and shook his head.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Harper asked.

"Yeah." Dylan took a deep breath. "You know, you can still go back to the party."

"I think my evening already hit its high point. And its low point too. I'll probably go to bed now so I have the energy tomorrow night to go clubbing with Sio until they kick us out."

"I wouldn't be so sure about the high point being over. It looked like a lot of people wanted to take you on after they watched you dance."

"A lot of people?" Was there something in the water on Rigol? Something he could bottle and take with him?

"It was damned sexy."

"So you saw me dance too."

Dylan finally looked straight at him, making him hyper aware that he sat there shirtless and had gold makeup highlighting his hardening nipples. "Harper, all of that gold...." Dylan came closer.

Harper could feel it leading to badness, but he still didn't move aside when Dylan kissed his mouth, licking at his lips, and pressed against him. Under the smell of recreational smoke on his clothes and hair, Dylan still smelled like Dylan, like comfort and lust and someone good to sleep with at night. All of the instinctive Harperian responses that accompanied that scent still applied, this time strengthened by his already sensitized skin.

"That's not fair," Harper said. Everything Dylan did felt too good, almost painfully good.

"Fair? Beka got to lick you," Dylan murmured against his neck. "It's sweet...."

That was one of the problems with letting people know you.... Well, it usually wasn't a _problem_, though here it was becoming one, that Dylan knew all of his Spots and seemed to be intent on using his hands and mouth on every one of them. Once upon a time, Harper's response to that would have been that we should all have such problems. But now there was Earth and Molly and a record of untrustworthiness and... oh, Dylan's thumb right _there_, pressing through his pants....

Harper found himself lying on his back on the table with a good view of Dylan's head as Dylan seemed to be trying to suck his nipples bare one at a time. Familiar press, familiar weight, familiar happy Dylan sounds, familiar manipulation. "I know what you're doing," Harper gasped. "I know. You're marking me...." Dylan repossessing his property and towing it away. With Harper's tone, as he mentioned it, sounding more flirtatious than objecting even to his own ears.

This was wrong. So, so wrong....

"This feels good, doesn't it? If you tell me to stop, I will," Dylan answered.

The word "stop" trembled at the edge of Harper's lips, but Dylan, fast and hungry, had already trailed his tongue down Harper's stomach and headed for Harper's cock. "Stop" turned into a low, drawn-out "oh" as Dylan lavished the kind of attention on his cock that he'd treated his sauce-slicked fingers to earlier that day.

Harper tried to think through it--find some objections, knowing that he had them in there somewhere--but he couldn't find the strength through the almost crystal-sharp pleasure. Everything seemed like too much, with him at a point where he could swear that he felt every single strand of Dylan's hair sliding between his clenched fingers.

Meds. The serum, the meds. The meds had sapped so much of his energy, depressed him, screwed him up in so many ways, made him feel _wrong_ even aside from the murderous monster babies sleeping and waiting inside his torso. The last time he'd had sex before today he'd only been off the serum for maybe about a day, and traces of it had to have still permeated his entire body from months of use. But now, days and days later, with the vestiges cycling out, his senses already keyed up from an earlier bout of sex, he was... he was....

Molten. It felt like he came forever. He almost blacked out again like he had with Oriya.

Dylan moved up to kiss him. "I missed you so much. It's been driving me crazy the last few days.... Can I--"

"Yes." Anything, yes.

Harper was already so relaxed that it didn't take much work for Dylan to slide into him. It felt good, but more muted than the opening attractions, for which Harper fuzzily thanked the Divine since he figured he'd spontaneously combust if getting fucked after all of those fireworks turned out to be just as intense. He'd get used to all of this again eventually, and it wouldn't be so shocking and mind-blowing, he was sure.

Then Dylan started to move, a more intense good, though still a warm, lazy good. Harper rocked with him, finding the best rhythm. Movement was good; it kept them lulled to sleep.... Dylan came with what almost sounded like a purr. A very satisfied purr.

Harper fell asleep with Dylan nibbling at his ear.

  


* * *

Harper woke up, still feeling a bit fuzzy, in the grip of The Arms That Stomped Boston. Hi, Dylan. They were snuggled together in his bunk on the Maru. Harper felt achy in a certain, special way, but clean. Somebody had gotten some, then gotten some personalized shower attention. Yay, him. A shame he couldn't remember Dylan doing the bath slave stuff. His stomach felt amazingly good this morning, but it was time for a good, stiff hit of the serum anyway. He reached for the nebulizer but couldn't find it in its usual place on its cord around his neck. What the hell....

No. He didn't need the nebulizer anymore. And Dylan-- That brought Harper completely awake.

Oh, fuck. _Fuck_. He was such a idiot.

Dylan mumbled as Harper's agitated twitching started to wake him up. Harper had to get _out_.... "Vacation," he murmured to Dylan. "Go back to sleep. 'M starving and gonna get myself some breakfast." Harper rolled out as soon as Dylan reluctantly let him go.

As angry as Harper felt at Dylan's manipulation, Dylan's what-I-want-is-best-for-you-ness, he felt much angrier with himself at the moment. Had anything that even remotely sounded like a "no" come out of his mouth last night? What, if you pulled his dick, all the brains fell out of his head?

He needed to get _out_.

Sio was coming in today. You couldn't get much different from people who didn't care about Earth or loyalty than Sio. Harper threw some clothes on, spiked his hair, and bolted before Dylan could wake up and start talking. Or start trying to kiss or snuggle him again. He didn't think he could take it.

It helped that nobody else was there in the Maru to see him flee in terror and confusion.

Breakfast at an outdoor café made things feel a little clearer, a little better. He may have hated how so many people saw him as a kid, but he had to admit that food and sleep made a huge difference to his state of mind, just like with a kid. Not that he had to admit that to other people.

Last night, he'd backslid. He'd gotten laid, gotten jazzed, gotten tired, and gotten taken advantage of. Dylan had been more in control of himself than Harper had been, and like hell Dylan hadn't known exactly what he was doing.

Not that Dylan had malice on his mind, oh no. He no doubt had the best of intentions. Dylan thought he was a good guy, misunderstood. Dylan just wanted things to run smoothly again, wanted his plush something again, and figured that anything that got him smoothness and his plush something had to be good for the rest of the crew and had to be good for Harper. And what could be wrong with hot sex and a good snuggle? They felt good and they helped avoid discussions of any pressing issues.

Far better to just avoid talking about all those nasty, inconvenient things that silly Harper couldn't let go of. Because, horrors, talking about it might expose Dylan's culpability in acts that were _not_ things good guys did and Dylan might be forced to apologize if he wanted to hold onto his good guy status.

Harper had screwed up last night, but he hadn't fallen so much as been pushed. Seeing that made him feel better. A bit.

Given the choice of enjoying his vacation and the morning sunshine or angsting, Harper decided to enjoy. There'd probably be more than enough angst to go around soon enough, so why get the jump on it?

As Harper ate his sugar-powdered fried donuts, seizing the day, marking time until he saw Sio, Rommie sat down across from him. "Shouldn't you be leaving to see your friend play?" she asked. The sunlight emphasized the blue in her hair.

"They never start on time, sound equipment being what it is, but yeah. Wanna come along?"

She smiled. "I'd really like to see Siobhan Barrett's arm, especially since it's famed for being beautiful and controversial. Thanks."

"You've been studying up on her?"

"Some of the interview material is especially interesting. I think my favorite piece is this one," Rommie's voice sounded like Sio's suddenly, "'I'm not setting out to be political, and our music isn't political. It seems that most of the people who see me as political feel that way just because I _survived_, because I'm here, and I didn't stay on my hellhole planet where I wouldn't be rubbing the existence of abused Nietzschean slaves in people's faces. A lot of people claim that the problem is my arm, and some have even offered the money to replace it with something that could pass for natural, but no amount of skin is going to change what's underneath. This is who I am; this is what I survived. If the way that I'm political and offensive is that I'm alive, I'll have to annoy people by continuing to live.'" Then Rommie sounded like Rommie again. "At which point more than a few people set out to kill her."

"To which she responded by saying--"

"'Who knew that saying "I'm alive" would offend so many people?' Yet she continues on just as she has, despite the death threats and murder attempts. She's only a musician."

"Some people take getting a limb chopped off as a reason to never back down from anything ever again. That's Sio. Of course, she also wears an ECM generator to baffle smart bullets."

Rommie looked thoughtful. "I'm sorry I wasn't more understanding to you during the Earth situation. It means a lot to you, as it does to her."

"Yeah. It's my home. I spent most of my life there. It's strategically important to _me_. And actually, it's more important strategically to Dylan than he realizes. Letting all those slave worlds keep on just as they were is giving a big message to the Drago-Kazov, you know, and that message is 'just keep on with what you're doing; it's _fine_.'"

Rommie nodded. "I'd like to see your friend play."

Harper wiped his fingers clean. "Then let's head over."

Harper surreptitiously watched her as they took mass transit over to the dock where the Barretts would be playing. Rommie really was differentiating from the part of her that ran and _was_ the ship, and in more than just hair. Probably inevitable, since her android body dealt with the crew on a more personal, physical, _intimate_ level, going on missions with them, going on _vacation_ with them.

He'd love to talk to her in depth about it, but he didn't know how it would go over, since she was a friend as well as one of his favorite pet projects and kind of his daughter. At least he'd built her body off of Argosy design specs--with some of his own tweaks--though her personality had pre-existed. Though her personality had been showing some touches of his influence lately....

They had such a crazy relationship, one complicated by mechanical, social, organic, hierarchical, and even temporal concerns.

He didn't want her to feel like he didn't see her as a person, because he totally did. She was a person _plus_ to him, a person who had all these other facets to her body and self that any engineer would find fascinating, let alone the engineer who had put her body together.

He loved her, and he didn't want to screw up what they had... whatever that was.

She smiled at him. "You look so thoughtful."

"I don't usually?"

"Harper."

"I was wondering if she's lonely out there by herself."

Rommie didn't need to ask whom he referred to. "I don't think so."

But she didn't know.

"I miss her." He _loved_ his vacation and being on a planet again, really loved it, but he missed the Andromeda Ascendant, the way the ship curled all around him, its own world, and the ever-present vibration of its workings. She was his baby, and while he was there he could always feel her.

Rommie put her hand on his wrist. "We'll always be here."

In some form. Because the ship and its AI existed to serve human beings.

Like a slave?

Wondering what it would be like being born knowing that you had been created only to serve and whether that could ever possibly be right took up Harper's attention until their stop. Given his specialties and prejudices, Harper revisited that train of thought every so often regarding AIs.

A large crowd had already gathered, obscuring the view of the band platform. "I can't see a thing," Harper muttered.

"I could put you up on my shoulders as long as you behaved yourself."

The mental image almost killed him. "I'd be too terrified of falling off backward to get excited by having the back of your head resting there."

"I don't understand the purpose of performing outside the day before they do a traditional, orderly performance inside."

"They started out as street performers, in New Orleans and then off Earth. Sio says that she feels more of a connection to her audience while busking than she does in the formal stuff. Okay, this sucks. I'm gonna try something." Harper accessed the comm under his skin and said, "Hey, Sio, play 'Danny Boy'!" He didn't know if the Commonwealth nano stuff would be compatible with Sio's rig, but it was worth a shot.

"Shay? You son of a bitch! How'd you-- Where are you?"

How could anyone think they had the same accent? She had that bit of a drawl....

Harper jumped up, waving his arm. He suddenly noticed people moving aside far in front of him until a small opening in the crowd right near his nose beckoned with Sio yelling, "I got a friend out there! Let him through!" Harper grabbed Rommie's wrist and squeezed through, then Sio grabbed his arm and they did the human chain thing up to the platform. Once there, Sio just about crushed him in a hug.

"Hey!" he shouted as he struggled against her guitar. He felt the rasp of her textured metal fingertips against his back where his shirt had untucked from his pants and risen up a bit.

"I know about Sinti. What happened there, and why you put that machine together. I'm just so damned glad you're alive," she whispered in his ear.

Damn. "I'm fine. I haven't been this fine in a long time. Can I help with anything?"

"No, we're good." She let him go and glanced at Shane.

When Harper did too, he noticed the murderous look directed at him. He waved jauntily. Good looking guy, Shane, a male version of Sio, but he'd be better looking without that sour puss.

"Introduce me to your friend fast, Shay?" Sio asked, shaking her hair back. The ends of the thick brown-black had been dyed a purple about the same shade as the purple enamel on her arm.

"Sure. This is Andromeda, Rommie." He smiled at how Rommie seemed to be scrutinizing Sio down to the atomic level with her stare and how Sio had chosen to wear a black babydoll T-shirt with "Sol 3" blazoned on it today. So much for not being political, Sio. The short sleeves revealed her arms, which could be seen as political too. The "gold" trinket necklace that had inspired the swirl pattern for her arm hung around her neck, and a bit of light flashed off the fake precious stones in it.

She and Shane each had a gun on their belts.

"_The_ Andromeda?" Sio asked.

"Part of her."

"Hey, that is so cool." She meant it, being as much a gearhead as Harper was, though not in the same directions. "Glad you came by, Rommie. I'd like to talk to you guys later."

Harper hopped down off the platform and brought Rommie down with him. Sio readjusted her guitar, strings, cords, pedals, and mic then nodded to Shane. He said into his own head mic, "We're the Barretts, and we _do_ have the permits necessary for this performance. I'm guitar, lead vocals, and sometimes bass. Siobhan is guitar, vocals, background, and controls. Thank you." Then the guitars and drums started, followed by their vocal harmonies. "Meet me by the gates...."

"Everything that's not the guitars and their vocals is done by Siobhan?" Rommie whispered into Harper's ear.

"From pre-sets in her prosthesis and the rig she's wearing along both arms. She tweaks them to fit the crowd they're playing for. She also adjusts mix, levels, vocals, and amplification," he whispered back.

"Most of the work she's doing is without the wires. Why does she have all those cords?"

"She told me once that people like to see where the music is coming from."

Rommie went silent after that, which suited Harper. The Barretts just kept getting better every time he heard them, which made sense since they toured perpetually, living in the Exile. Somehow their guitar work, whether electric or acoustic, made him think of sunshine and babbling streams and those legendary amber fields of waving grain. Being siblings, their voices wove in and out in harmony with a particular grace. He realized that they had metal bits on the soles on their boots to provide another kind of drumming as they tapped their feet. They rocked and swayed their bodies and sometimes banged their heads along to the music.

Sio still moved with her guitar like she was fucking it. She was a harsher lover with her repro Strat electric than her acoustic. The metal of her fingers against her steel strings produced a different sound than Shane's traditional flesh against his strings. The arm moved smoothly but not quite humanly, and its silver-toned metal and clear purple, green, and yellow enamels gleamed in the sunlight.

At the end of the second song and the following applause, Shane took a deep swig of water, then said, "Thank you! Where y'at, Rigol? We're doing a short set here today as an appetizer for tomorrow's performance at the Mar'yana Kauburna Theater. Tomorrow we'll be backed by your own local legends, Loose Wire, Shihf Anansa, and the Than Drumming Thunder. A longer program with completely live music, unlike today. We'll also be dressed up prettier, especially Siobhan, who'll be showing more skin." He paused specifically so she had a chance to shake her flesh fist at him. "Some tickets for that are still available nearby. If you like what you hear today, ring us some creds at the official machines placed around and buy yourself a ticket for tomorrow."

"How are you holding up through the music?" Harper asked Rommie.

"I'm enjoying the music. It varies between wildness and moments of mathematical precision. I'm also enjoying Siobhan's 'controller' skills. She's micromanaging everything."

"You can follow her signals?"

Rommie nodded. "It's as engrossing as the music for me. I wonder how much cybernetic enhancement she has. From this distance, I can't tell. Although both she and her brother have something in their vocal cords. That's how she's triggering his voice effects."

Well. "Yeah, she told me once that she could make him sound like a duck if she wanted to. Glad you're liking the show." Harper had to suggest to Sio that she could have a possible synthetic life-form following if she only pursued it.

Shane and Sio launched into "Words" with their usual energy. Halfway through Harper realized that one of the drum tracks sounded so familiar because Sio was using something that sounded like the stuttering rhythm the Maru engine had had while she'd been sheltering in it that time when they'd been escaping the Albuquerque Food Riots. No, it _was_ the exact noise, recorded. Harper wondered if Beka would be pleased, indifferent, or demanding a cut of any profits from the song.

Considering that "Words" was a song about missing home, the engine track made it even more meaningful for him, and he was pleased. Beyond pleased, even, and into adrenalized. At some point he noticed Rommie watching him with a very satisfied expression, so he grinned back. He surfed the energy and joy the crowd, the music, and Sio and Shane gave off, drifting with it. He remembered the give and take of energy, the flow of power, he'd felt with his audience during his big speech in Boston, but nobody would die from _this_ performance.

Sio had been defiant at the news that people would be gunning for her. "I'm not crawling into a hole to hide," she'd said. This was her way of fighting, her way of making sure people didn't forget Earth. This was their people's music, part of the heritage of every human being alive, and he watched the humans in the crowd respond to it on a deeper level than the other people.

It gave him a dark satisfaction and put an edge in his smile.

After one encore, the Barretts ended with a very tricky and showy bit of vocal harmony, a flourish of sound and fury, and a sweet phrase of guitar notes to thunderous applause. Shane shouted, husky-voiced, "Thank you! See you at the Mar'yana Kauburna Theater tomorrow!"

Harper jumped up onto the stage. "Great show!"

Sio grinned back as she put her guitar on its stand and started to unplug herself. "Yeah, I think we won. Thanks."

"Please?" Rommie asked.

Sio held out her right arm and let Rommie touch it and rotate it for a better look. The palm and bottom of the fingers looked a bit tarnished since she couldn't polish them without the possibility of polishing the fingerprint-replicating texture right off.

"This is so the fingers and hand don't slide off things," Rommie said to herself.

"If after all that I couldn't play the guitar with my new arm, I would have been pissed," Sio answered anyway. "I did all kinds of tests playing with this thing before I let them declare it done. I can even chicken pick with it."

Rommie raised an eyebrow but must have gotten the idea from context. She traced the etched whorl lines in the metal that blended with the moving joints and swirled around the two data ports, made it all look like a deliberate pattern. She scrutinized the metal textures that were visible under the bands of clear colored enamels that decorated the swirls on the arm like cloisonné in places. "Are they purple, green, and yellow only because those are your necklace's colors?" Rommie asked.

"No, those are my city's colors. That's why they're my necklace's colors, and so on. Purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power."

"I was worried sick when I heard about that deranged fan," Harper said.

"Yeah, I got your message... three months after you sent it," Sio said. "I sent my own to you two months ago. Mail really sucks."

"I want to check your cranial system myself for damage or reprogramming."

Sio grinned. "Thanks. I switched the input/output on him before he could do anything, but a check would be nice."

"You sound very casual considering this man tried to rewrite your cranial system and mind via a port of his own," Rommie said.

Sio raised her eyebrow at Harper. Harper said, "She did some research."

"Shane would have gotten a decent stalker." She glanced at Shane, who was surrounded by female admirers, and smirked. "I got Mr. Potato Head. He was plugged to me via our ports, ready to do some nefarious thing to my brain, and I was rolling my eyes instead of freaking out. 'I want you to be conscious when I do this. I want you to _know_. Muwaahhahahaaaa.'"

"He did an evil laugh?" Harper asked.

"He might as well have. What an idiot he was. Gets a cut-rate cranial system, works with it for only two months, and thinks he can take out somebody who's been using her top of the line one to manipulate hardware and software almost hourly for the past four years. He didn't even feel me flipping the input/output on him and taking control before he even had a chance to do anything to _me_. I'd sue his installer if I were him. 'Course, he's a vegetable after what I did to him, so hey."

"But I'd feel better--"

"--if you checked me. You're a good guy."

"And I have... someone I have to ask you about."

Sio stiffened a little. She knew what he meant. "Yeah. Later." When they were alone, away from people who _didn't_ need to know that the Barretts provided a kind of information gathering and disseminating service, particularly for Earth-based matters.

In the meantime, they took apart Sio's gear and put it on her cart as she drew Rommie out about what it was like being a warship. Sio and Shane both had a gift for schmooze, but here Harper could feel Sio's genuine interest even beyond information being one of her businesses. Rommie just... bloomed under the attention and interest, as if Harper needed any more reminders that she looked like a beautiful woman.

Eventually they finished disassembling the gear and loading it onto the cart and Shane had taken off with some groupies, so they, minus Shane and his bimbos, took off for the Exile with the mechanized cart following obediently behind them. Sio used her internal hardware in a lot of ways Harper didn't and did it so often that she could drive a cart behind her, walk, and talk all at the same time.

Thinking about that saved him from having to think about the question he had to ask Sio and the questions she'd be sure to ask him in return.

When they reached the Exile--the Barretts' small, but nearly cozy ship/home/tourbus--Harper wondered how he could get rid of Rommie so he could get to what he had to do next, but Rommie said, "Thank you for an interesting afternoon. I have another appointment to keep. It was a pleasure meeting you."

Harper shot her a look, and she gave him a too steady look in return. It made him wonder what she thought was going on.

"The pleasure was mine," Sio answered. "It's not every day you meet a legend."

"You can keep this one," Rommie stage whispered to him as she left.

"You're cute, Rommie," Harper replied. She simply smiled and walked away.

The Exile hadn't changed much on the inside since the last time he'd seen it, though its walls had a new coat of cheery aqua paint. It had a much homier look than the Maru did, obviously. As they walked in, the Exile said with Siobhan's voice, "Welcome, Siobhan, Seamus," in measured tones. Harper knew that the Barretts had a security system set up to detect anyone who shouldn't be in there, though he never saw what it did to intruders. Music started to play. Sio parked the cart of gear in a closet and locked it up, then started to surreptitiously thrust things out of sight under the furniture and consoles.

The whole time, she had this expression on her face that suggested she had a million things zinging through her brain at high speed. Before Sio could pounce with what looked like insistent questions, Harper asked, "I have to know. Are you affiliated with the Perseid secret librarians?"

Sio choked. "You know, they'd be more secret if they'd stop telling people about themselves. And if they didn't have that big, honking insignia on their hands. Yeah, I am. You must have found out about that when you had that database force-fed into your cranium. God, Shay, I've been scared to death for you on and off for the last two years even from what little I've been hearing. The database thing, the rumor that you'd been infested with Magog eggs, then the thing with the tesseract machine months later which told me that you _couldn't_ have been infested because you wouldn't have survived that long, except that reports suggested that you built the machine to fix that very problem.... And then you show up here, and you look great, which makes sense since the report from Sinti was that a mysterious alien used the machine to save you, but that it was too dangerous for further use. But if Dylan Hunt has a serum or procedure that _doesn't_ involve that machine, that helps people survive infestation longer, why the hell hasn't he released it or used it as a bargaining chip or something?"

Harper hadn't even let himself think about that. "I don't know. It's not my place to say anything. But the treatment was bad. I was sick for months just from that, let alone the-- It doesn't even keep them dormant forever. Eventually they build up a resistance and.... I can't talk about this."

"Shay--"

This could go on for a while. He said, "I need to find out what happened to my cousin, Brendan Lahey. He was on Earth during the recent revolt."

That snapped her out of her train of thought. "Name doesn't ring a bell. You know how rare it is to get any names out."

Of course. Because nobody on Earth meant anything to anyone who wasn't their nearest and dearest. "He was the guy on the 'call to arms' transmission."

"Fuck, Shay, do you know how many people are dying to know the whereabouts and condition of that guy alive, dead, or otherwise? He's your cousin?" Sio stiffened. "I heard rumors that they went into revolt expecting support strikes from space that never came, and that the source of the strikes was supposed to have been the Andromeda Ascendant, which got too tied up in the Sabra-Jaguar/Dragan space battle to actually show. I _heard_ that somebody was down on the planet to start the Earth rebellion up, and nobody could figure out how whomever found someone who could make the Terrans believe a fairy tale about a ship coming to help them when nobody gave a damn for centuries."

Harper couldn't look her in the eyes. "The other slave worlds that rose up were crushed by the Dragans, too... how many died?"

"Shay."

"How. Many." It had to bad. It had to be even worse than he'd thought. And she still couldn't give him any news, any _certainty_, on Brendan.

"I can't say."

Bullshit. "My imagination is worse than anything you could tell me."

"I _can't_ say. Nobody _knows_. It's not like the Dragans keep records of all their kludges and how many they dust." She put her hands on his shoulders and seemed to be trying to will him to look up at her. "What did he do to you, Shay?"

"Who?"

"Hunt. Fucking _Hunt_. You were... you still had to be... _sick_ when he sent you down there, and then he never even showed up and the whole thing went to hell...." She hugged him tightly. "I'm so sorry."

Harper shook against her. "It's my.... I never completely believed him when he said he'd come and help, because nobody ever has, but I _wanted_ to so badly, wanted to believe that somebody actually cared about us, so I started things up. I gave this big speech and everything. I sent people out there and watched them die and waited for the Andromeda to make everything all better. Then Dylan couldn't show after all and sent somebody to ask me to put the rebellion back in the box and sweep it all under the rug. But it was all too late. Much, much too late. They were massacred. Then the other slave worlds rose up too.... And I don't even know what happened to Brendan."

Sio sat him down and gave him a glass of rum. "Drink."

"Sio."

Sitting down across from him, her eyes blazed with rage, but not at him. He could tell. "Drink it. I have one too. I'll drink with you."

The first swig of rum blazed going down, and he hiccuped. He closed his eyes. "Shane still dead set against your side projects? Still think I'm the key to your ruination as a musician, a person, his partner, and his sister?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

Harper lifted his glass. "To Shane Barrett, the one constant in an ever-changing universe."

She lifted her glass too. "To Shane." Then drank. "Fuck, Shay. How are you holding yourself together? And what bastard broke your heart too, on top of all the rest of it?"

His smile felt spectacularly fake and far too shaky. "Who said anything about my heart being broken?" He took another deep swig of rum. She simply gave him a penetrating green-eyed stare. "I'm _good_," he insisted.

"I'm going to kill Dylan Hunt," she muttered. How the hell did she-- He must have reacted, because she suddenly said, "Dylan _Hunt_?"

Oh shit. "No." She hadn't known. She'd just wanted to kill Dylan over the other stuff.

"Yes. _Yes_. You're lousy at lying to the people who know you. You were sick, and he sent you down to tell people to go out to die and screwed you and the whole planet over, and was he involved with you at the time?"

Harper couldn't breathe. He hadn't given much thought to how a question and answer time with Sio would go, but this was much worse than anything he could have imagined. He had no answers to give and nowhere to run to.

Sio had her hands on him again, comforting and supporting, and said, "Breathe! I'm sorry! I know better than to go after the victim. Hunt's known for keeping his promises, and you were ill and in love and in hope."

"I'm not--" Harper gasped, miserable.

"Shhh. I'm sorry. More rum."

"I don't need to get drunk."

"Right. You need to get justice."

Harper just stared at her, struck wordless. Lost.

She shook her head. "I've reduced you to a state where you can't even talk, and that takes a hell of a lot of doing. I suck. I'm sorry."

"Can't talk? In three seconds of shooting in the dark, you got your every question answered and leads on a few you had no idea about."

"This is all off the record. All of it. I'd never take advantage of you like that."

Harper took a shaky breath. "I really don't want to talk about it. Any of it."

"Okay."

"I mean I _really_ don't want to talk about it."

"Okay."

"Can I check out your rig for you?"

"Hunh?"

"I promised I would earlier."

Sio gave him a look that said plainly, "I know exactly what you're up to."

"I need this, okay?" Harper said.

"All right. You and your damned Yankee work therapy. Fine. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, you know." Her tone saying that she didn't intend to be like _some_ people. "But if you want to talk at any time, you just start."

"You sure you want to encourage that?"

"Like I could stop you anyway. And the humor doesn't fool me for a moment."

"It never did. I know that."

"Check me out."

"Oh, baby." Harper passed his scanner over her. "Everything looks fine from out here, but I imagine you had this done already."

"Yep."

Harper put his scanner back into his toolbelt. "Okay, I'm coming in."

"You romantic, you."

After settling into comfortable positions--which turned out to be her spooned in his arms, to present the shortest distance for the cord to have to reach--on her comfy bed, Harper used one of her cords to link their neck ports, wincing at the familiar pressure, almost-pain of the plug sliding in. Her database had an interesting "taste" to it, just as all enhancements implanted within people seemed to taste vaguely different than machinery that didn't reside in flesh. Maybe the interfacing and bioelectricity made a difference.... If he'd been the academic type, he might have investigated it for a thesis. Being just himself, he filed it in his anecdotal archives to be examined later.

Harper closed his eyes and went in, touching down in a violet landscape, the color cooler than the rich, raucous purple of her necklace, arm, and hair ends. Healthy activity processed at great speed through the lattice-like cyber-opolis all around him. He felt along the leads to her arm, her enhanced vocal cords, her equipment, the ship, and even farther outward still. Harper deliberately kept the input and output to his own implants strictly controlled, but Sio kept herself far more open. In here, he felt infinite possibilities, like he could go anywhere, do anything. It was intoxicating... and not his. Focus.

If he wanted to be utterly thorough, he'd have to spend days in here, which neither of them had, but he knew where any attack on her hardware and software via her cranial port would come first, so he examined those areas and found nothing wrong or grafted. To be utterly safe, he traveled down into her arm and checked the port access areas there too and again found nothing worrying. As best as he could figure from the evidence, the bastard had never gotten in, just as Sio had thought.

Returning to his body after an extended trip always felt weird and slightly wrong, as if he'd traded in for a smaller container. Good thing the designers had put in an endorphin reward system to lessen the blow. Of course, now he felt horny as all hell, and having Sio, warm and soft and hard, lying in his arms made him want to do things. It definitely made his problems feel more distant.

"What's the verdict?" she asked.

"Looks clean to me."

"Thanks." She pushed back against him, then purred, "Is that a tool in your pocket, or are you glad to see me?"

She didn't seem to mind--and probably had her own endorphin rush going--but he had to make sure. "You don't have to do anything if you don't want to."

"I think I just heard that from someone recently. No, this is good, very good. Shane gets all the fun groupies, while I get the freaks who want to watch me crush beer cans with my hand. Besides, performing always leaves me jazzed. I'm so up for this."

"I thought you said you weren't going to take advantage of me."

"How did this go from me doing you a favor you asked me for to me taking advantage of you?"

"Asked? Did not. And how did this turn into you doing me a favor?"

Sio turned to face him, the cord connecting them slithering across their necks sensuously as she moved. "I hate you."

"Ditto. Kiss me?"

When she did, her mouth tasted like rum, just like his did.

  


* * *

Harper snuggled all the way under Sio's patchwork quilt, like what he imagined it would be like going into a tent, and took stock of her. Well, different stock, now that he'd already done the lustful taking stock. "The navel ring is new."

"Don't pull on that! Jeez! Well, I miss your earring." She gently pulled his head back up by his hair before he could do more mischief and nibbled on his ear. "Why'd you stop wearing it?"

"Image thing. People respected me more without it."

"People respect you? Ow!"

"Hey, this navel ring makes a great handle."

"Bastard."

"Yeah." He stroked the slightly raised enameled hatch along the top of her hand. "You have to use this recently?" Plan B, a pop-up blaster. When he'd suggested installing one, his big pitch had been that she'd "never be disarmed again." She'd needed five minutes to stop laughing.

"Last year. No other resort. They never found the body." She stroked his arm with her natural hand. "Don't go back to Andromeda and Hunt. Tour with us."

She'd made this offer every time she saw him but never so vehemently before. "Sio--"

"You'll have free drinks and people tossing themselves at you as sex toys to get to us in every port. You know and understand my set-up better than anybody other than me, and you have that musical background that I know is in there, no matter how much you deny it. You're the closest thing I have to a friend from the old neighborhood, who knows how things are."

"And Shane can toss me out an airlock."

"Shane needs you. If you didn't exist, he'd have to invent you."

So Shane would have a "reason" why Sio finally left him once he'd finally used up all her gratitude for getting her off Earth alive and taking care of her during her one-armed days. Harper put his hand over the dent-like scar on her right hip. "I can't tour with you."

Sio didn't sound surprised. "Because you're too loyal to Beka, and that warship turned your head. I know I can't offer you anything that could compare with the engineering glories of the Andromeda Ascendant, but I had to try."

"Speaking of too loyal...."

"As tempting as the thought of leaving him for a solo career can be, especially when I have to sing those terrible lyrics to the 'king of the jungle' song for the umpteenth time--"

Harper sang, "I'm a little dog," and got his arm smacked. "Hey!" he protested. "It's not like I wrote it. Smack Shane. Hey, now there's a band name...." Talking about her problems helped him avoid his own, though she shot him stern "Confess! Heal!" looks once in a while.

"He's my brother. He disapproves of just about everything I do that isn't standard Barrett work, but it's not like he tries to stop me from doing it any other way than verbally sneering over it." Sio closed her eyes, then sighed. "Damn, speaking of non-Barretts work Shane would hate, I have to get ready for my weaving gig. Wanna come along?"

After more fooling around together in the shower--they had to conserve the ship's stores of water and all--they trooped off to the wardrobe room with all of its closets, and Sio put some thought into what he could wear. "Your own pants are tight enough to work for a club." She laughed as he flipped her off. "You could wear this for a shirt," she said.

Harper snorted once he got a good look at it. "You still have this?"

"You left it behind that night. Along with your boots."

"And where are those?" Nights when you had to jump out a window bare-chested and barefoot tended to linger in your memory.

"I'll find them. Sometime. They're probably in here somewhere. Don't worry about it." She powdered down her skin, then started to shimmy into her chosen outfit.

Harper carefully pulled the shirt on. He and Sio had nearly exploded into snickering the first time they saw it in the store. For the chest piece, fishnet showed through artfully frayed slashes here and there in the tight, shiny black fabric. Shiny metal pins held the chopped up sleeves together, revealing a lot of skin. "It's so... authentic," Sio had finally gasped. Then she saw the price and almost went into hilarity-induced cardiac arrest. She bought it for him and refused to let him know how much it cost.

He let her, since he liked how one of the sleeve holes revealed part of his tattoo.

"Wear an earring too?" she asked.

"You miss it that much?"

"You have the port on the other side. I'm just fond of balance." She only wore earrings in her left ear, since wearing metal near a port could be a recipe for trouble and you didn't want anything there your cords could get tangled on.

"Suuuure." But he accepted a bright, long silver piece that looked like a machine part, a holding pin maybe, and covered the bottom ridge of his ear. When he turned around to face her, a soft powder brush struck his forehead and went down the ridge of his nose. "Hey!"

"Aren't you pretty?"

"Aren't you dead...." It didn't look that bad, actually, since it was just a streak of silver dust swept down his face with an almost tribal flair. In a lot of lighting, you wouldn't even notice it. "What is up with everybody painting me?"

"'Everybody'? Tell, tell."

"Back off, you harpy. Jeez, now you're dressing me."

"I _always_ dress you when I'm around."

"It's not like I'm your toy."

"Keep telling yourself that, dear."

She didn't seem impressed by his rebuttal of sticking out his tongue.

When the club's transport arrived, Sio dusted a last bit of glitter on her eyelids and into her hair, smoothed down her skintight rubber outfit, and offered him her hand, the natural one. "Our chariot awaits, sir." Shaking his head, he took the proffered hand. She picked up her control box of music clips with her other hand and dragged him to the door.

Harper sank into the transport's lush seat, sampled the small seafood buffet there, and checked out the stock of liquor. Lavish. "Didn't realize you were getting this big," he said as he ate some spicy crab puffs and rested his head against the blackout window.

"The weaving, production, and moonlighting vocal work I do bring in as much as or more than the guitar work I do as part of the Barretts. Drives Shane nuts, but that's just a pleasant side effect." Sio sipped her drink through a small straw. "Mmm. And Downtime always has a hurricane ready for me, mixed just the way I like it."

"You never had a good hurricane on Earth."

"Yeah, but I know how one's supposed to be mixed and had an idea of how it would taste if somebody made it with the good stuff."

"We're skipping the front entrance?"

Nibbling at the orange slice in her drink, Sio said, "Don't want to get mobbed."

Harper smirked. "Don't mind me. I'm just watching your head swell."

"Says the guy who _lives_ on the Andromeda Ascendant. The Exile, where I spend way too much of my time, is a small tin can."

"Whatever."

When they walked inside the club people didn't give her any time to enjoy herself; immediately after checking Harper and Sio's guns, they sent her straight to her weaver's box. Any objections they had to Harper following ended when she said she wanted him there to help her set up. "This going to be recorded?" Sio asked the owner.

The owner fidgeted. "Of course."

"I'm sure you'll have no trouble sending the contract to my legal representatives. I won't let any recording happen until they approve."

He actually smiled. "Done."

Sio closed her eyes, checking, then smiled. Wireless had so many advantages. "It's good. Pleasure doing business with you."

"And your drink...?"

"Exquisite, as usual. I know how hard it can be to get good pineapple juice."

He nodded and left.

"He tries to rip you off every time?" Harper asked.

"Nah. I think he just doesn't feel right about himself if he doesn't try to slip something past me. I've done Downtime three times in the last two years, so it's just a dance with us now."

Harper helped her integrate her clip box into the system boards, then plug in via her neck and arm ports, testing the give of the cords so she wouldn't yank anything out by accident. She ran a diagnostic of the club's systems before actually going in deep herself or running any of her treasured clips through it.

Over the last two years Sio had come into high demand as a weaver, though she'd been at it for three. While anybody could play music for a few hours, few people could not only make the songs run seamlessly together, but also cut other bits in and out and play two or more different songs together in harmony in response to a crowd's mood and receptivity. Sometimes she played selections backwards and worked them together with other pieces. Weaving took a killer memory, a lot of processing power, and a musical background. Sio had the further advantage to the avant-garde crowd of using selections that nobody else did. People went to hear her weave out of wanting to be surprised.

"Ready?" Harper asked.

She already had a distance to her gaze that came from working within the system. "Golden. Have fun, will ya?"

As Harper stepped out onto the dance floor, the lights dimmed and something hard, driving, Earth-based, and about two millennia old started to play. He recognized it, but doubted that anyone else did. Then she counterpointed it with some more modern tune that had been popular a year ago and somehow made them work together. She'd shown him one of her weaving playlists once, and it had looked like a tree made of song names and time codes, sometimes with branches that just kept branching further and further.

Since he didn't know anybody here, he danced by himself, losing himself in the music and leaving himself open to wherever Sio would head next. But, after a while, Harper realized that most of the rest of the club, at least the people around him, had started to dance with him. Maybe they'd realized that he knew the selections better than they did and decided to follow his lead. It was surreal, especially during that one song when he managed to get a line dance started. The sight of a few line-dancing Than had to make the very foundations of reality shake.

Harper laughed when Sio's weaving slipped a sudden bit of the Pogues' "Boys from the County Hell" into the bridge of a Vedran chamber piece as cleanly as a pro would slide a really sharp shiv into a victim's gut. He sang along, "Stay on the other side of the road / 'Cause you can never tell / We've a thirst like a gang of devils / We're the boys of the county hell," unable to help himself. The end of it rewrapped seamlessly back into the Vedran thing as if it had always been there.

Sio did a lot of pre-set programming--it took a killer memory and prodigious computing power to play, shape, spindle, and manipulate however many tracks of music for five hours on the fly--but she also adjusted her sets to audience reaction once she went on. He wondered if she'd played that bit just for him or if it had always been planned. In those few moments when enough people moved aside that he could see her, she had her eyes closed in concentration as she smiled and moved along, plugged into the boards via the ports in her neck and arm, happily spinning music in the elevated glass box.

Shane didn't get it, and he didn't even like the backing tracks she put together for their busking. Man was such a rabid traditionalist that he saw no creativity or artistry in a music you didn't physically make yourself that very moment on an instrument he could understand.

Shane didn't get her found music collages or her machine music or language. Nor did he want to. Which meant that he refused to understand Sio, and Harper knew and Sio knew that Shane would lose her for that someday.

Harper spun out of a woman's arms and into Tallien's. "Oh, hi."

Tallien smirked and dipped Harper, to Harper's great amusement.

"Where's Yahya?"

Tallien slipped one hand free, brought it close to his face and wiggled its fingers near his mouth, then made a kissy face at it.

"She's kissing somebody's ass? She's making out with an octopus?"

Tallien collapsed against his shoulder, laughing almost soundlessly.

"You have a good time with yourself about the whole signing thing, don't you?"

"Yeah, actually," Tallien breathed into Harper's ear.

As they danced, Harper could feel Tallien getting harder and harder against him, and Tallien's excitement did wonders for his own. He felt almost high from endorphins, adrenaline, and lust. When Tallien whispered into his ear, "I want you to fuck me, long and slow," Harper really didn't need any convincing and just let Tallien lead him away.

He figured that he _could_ question the change in luck that sent him from having gone steady with his hand and Dylan for about two years to having two or more people proposition him a day, but why should he? Far better to ride it while it lasted.

Far better to ride Tallien, who must have had leg muscles of steel to make it possible for Harper to fuck him standing up against the wall of the back hallway. They would have had height difference issues otherwise. Sweet and needing, with his shirt off now because he "wanted to feel it," Tallien made breathy sounds of pleasure as Harper licked the beads of sweat off his spine. He made even better sounds every time Harper thrust. So hot, so tight, so into it.... If Harper hadn't been getting sex from so many places lately, making this long and slow would have been a problem. Keeping it long and slow seemed to be a problem for Tallien, so Harper kept a tight grip around his cock. The music's driving momentum also made it harder to stay mellow, but he counted along with the beats.

Though he had to laugh when he recognized "Starfuckers, Inc." as one of the songs currently harmonizing at full blast.

As they rocked together, Harper glanced back and suddenly saw Yahya standing there. Mouth slack and open, eyes dazed, she had one hand moving under her short skirt and the fingers of her other one at her lips.

On his next thrust up, Harper said into Tallien's ear, "Yahya's watching us. It looks like the sight of us is really making her hot." Harper grunted at the clench of muscles around his cock and Tallien's thrust into his fist. "I think she's stroking herself while watching." A similar reaction from Tallien again. Toying with him was fun.

Yahya leaned on the wall near them, her bright eyes obvious even in the dimness. "Tee, I want you to fuck me while Haitch is fucking you," she said.

Tallien exploded even with Harper's grip on him and wrung Harper dry as he went. So much for long and slow. Eventually, Harper said, "Yahya, if you'd come by a little earlier with that offer, maybe you would have had a chance."

She sighed and walked off. Tallien laughed soundlessly, and Harper, leaning against his back, jiggled with him. "She do that a lot?" Harper asked. Tallien shook his head. "You do this a lot?" Another head shake. "Why me? Or do you just like people who talk too much?"

Tallien shook his head in annoyance, tidied them up, and re-dressed them, then dragged Harper over to a sagging couch to sit down. Once there, he set his head on Harper's shoulder and said directly into his ear, "I like you. I like the way you move and the way everything and anything seem to turn you on after you've already done one go-round. I don't see you much. I'm seizing the day."

"I'm totally with you there." Especially with cozy afters involved.

Half draped on Harper, Tallien kissed him slowly, deeply, leaving a cool melon taste with a slight alcoholic kick on Harper's tongue. He could do this lazy, narcotic making out for a while, no problem. Breathe, kiss and stroke, breathe. Easy. Then Tallien waved his hand hard and fast behind him and smacked something that yelped. Yahya.

Jeez. "Have you heard of refractory time?" Harper demanded. "Get out of our faces!" Tallien's glare backed him up. She pouted and wandered off.

"I'm not going to hear the end of this for ages," Tallien said. "Oh, fuck it." And went back to kissing.

Harper approved. "You could explain it to her later."

"Mmmm."

"Hunh?"

"She thinks I'm mute."

Harper laughed so hard that Tallien's nose hit his chin. "Ow. Sorry, but how many years has she known you?"

"They told her I was mute when she bought me. If she knew I talked, she'd want me to do it all the time, even though it hurt."

Sad. Harper stroked his hair. "You stay with her, why? Never mind. I hear your voice getting raggedy again."

Tallien took Harper's hand, closed it in his, and put it to his chest, over his heart. Harper could get that.

And it seemed that he'd gotten enough recovery time. Sensing that, Tallien smirked and turned his attentions deeper and more serious. Harper's hips did their own sign language against Tallien's.

Then the music stopped and Sio said, "I've been Siobhan Barrett, and your evening's Downtime is done. Good night, everyone!" The lights came on, and the club's staff starting ringing their bells and shouting, "We're closing! Everyone out! We're closing!"

It was _that_ late?

With the stark light and noise, Harper found himself instinctively burrowing into Tallien's shoulder for shelter, a hard thing to do while Tallien was laughing. "_This_ is more like my life," Harper muttered to him. But how much sex did he really think he needed to get in one day anyway?

As much as he could get his hands on, but still.

"Tee."

Tallien sighed, gave him a goodbye kiss, and got up off the couch, which looked a lot seedier in regular light. Yahya directed a considering look in Harper's direction, which Harper answered with a blinding "Who, me?" smile. As much as he'd like a second go with Tallien, he didn't think he could deal with Yahya's demands or voice.

"Hey, Shay. Ready to go?" Sio smiled genuinely down at him, then greeted Yahya with an edged version of that. "Hi."

Yahya looked surprised. "You know--"

Rescue. "Yeah. And yeah, Sio. Good night, guys."

Sio grabbed his arm and directed him toward the back door in case he needed help or Yahya wanted to talk. Having a take-charge woman on your side had so many benefits.

  


* * *

Back in the transport's plush seats, fatigue started to hit. Harper rested his head against the back of the seat and looked at the sky starting to lighten through the blackout windows.

"Looks like you had a good night," Sio said, a smirk making her voice darker and richer.

"Sometimes I wish you could be out there enjoying your own set instead of working."

"You're sweet, but I wouldn't listen to it the same way you do anyway."

Something hit the transport, hard, and the next thing Harper knew he had Sio sprawled atop him and he seemed to be lying on his side against the side of the transport. Which seemed to be lying on _its_ side. He and Sio each had a gun in hand in seconds. The whole transport rocked again.

Sio crawled over and knocked on the panel separating the passenger section from the driver's. "Hey! You okay in there?"

The driver made a confused sound.

"Is this transport bullet- and small arms-proof?" she yelled. If their enemies had missiles or nukes, they could just kiss their asses goodbye. Didn't seem like it, though.

"It's not... proof. It's... resistant."

"Great," Harper said. "If you fire at this thing, its response is to say, 'This isn't happening, this is _so_ not happening' over and over again."

"We have to get out," Sio said. "If they climb on top and start firing and dropping things inside--"

"Yeah."

"Can we get out through the trunk?" she shouted to the driver.

"Yeah! But I'm supposed to be protecting you!" he shouted back.

"Can you?"

"Uh. I seem to be pinned under the steering column."

Sio rolled her eyes. "Exactly. Thanks, guy."

"This really isn't my fault!"

"Whatever."

Harper could swear he heard the guy muttering something about getting fired.

Sio felt around the seat cushions until she found the seat release and pulled the panel down, then they looked into the small, dark trunk area. "You think the bad guys know we can get out this way?" Harper asked.

"How would I know?"

The transport rocked again, and this time it felt like several someones were scaling the side of it. "Good point. We come out shooting."

"As always. How about you sweep the side of the transport while I do lookout, try to use the lid as a shield, and shoot anybody else who might be hanging around? I was a better shot when I could do it right-handed." Her prosthetic hand tended to compress gun triggers a little too hard.

"Gotcha. I hope the lid's really resistant. Guess we're about to find out." At least the trunk was big enough that they could position themselves the way they wanted to for this, though he kept stepping on different parts of Sio's body. "Go!"

Harper started shooting at any movement he saw along the side of the transport and hoped they were bogies and not, say, medical workers trying to get passengers out. Ah, they were firing back. That settled it. They were screaming too, so he knew he had to be nailing some of them.

Sio fired off two shots to the other side, then lightly smacked Harper on the head with the trunk lid. Not that bad, actually. They didn't do this trunk shooting thing every day. He didn't even feel it anyway.

"You're clear!" Tyr suddenly shouted. Tyr?

Harper opened up the trunk lid and looked out to see Tyr approaching with another Nietzschean held in a choke grip. Sio just saw them as two Nietzscheans and raised her arm-- "No!" Harper shouted as he knocked her gun arm down. "Tyr's with the Andromeda crew."

"You're kidding me," she said.

"Nope."

"How do you deal with that?" Sio looked like she was adding one more item to the "things Dylan Hunt must die for" list.

"One day at a time. No, really, he's good, he's saved my life a few times. Besides, he's Kodiak, not Dragan."

Her look said, "He's _Nietzschean_," and there was no way to answer that. At least she holstered her gun.

They spilled out of the trunk to meet up with Tyr, stepping over some bodies along the way. Harper said, "Siobhan Barrett, meet Tyr Anasazi out of Victoria by Barbarossa. Tyr, this is Sio." Harper pointed to Tyr's captive. "And who's he?"

Tyr shook his prey and said, "He's Dragan, as are his comrades. My congratulations on decimating a Dragan hit squad."

"You don't dare harm me now," the Dragan said, looking pretty stupidly defiant considering he had Tyr's giant, meaty arm tight around his neck. "I'm your only source of information now."

Sio shrugged. "I have no questions. 'Why did you attack?' I'm me, Shay's with the Andromeda, and you're Dragan. Seems simple enough. I say we kill him."

"I don't have any questions either," Harper said.

As Tyr's arm tightened around the Dragan's neck, the guy said, "Wait! I'm useful!"

"You're useless and inferior," Tyr said. "You devour resources better utilized by worthier life-forms, such as these _humans_ in front of you. Thus--"

"Halt. Rigol Police. Put your hands away from your bodies," one of a small army of uniformed cops said

"Great," Sio muttered.

Tyr said, "Officer, if I put my hands away from my body I will release this miscreant, who was part of the party who attempted to kill the other two people standing before you."

"You just keep you arms in sight then around your, uh, captive. You other two put your hands away from your body."

Harper and Sio did so. She said, "Our driver is still trapped in the transport. We know he's pinned, and he's probably hurt. Please get him medical attention."

As the small army swarmed over the corpses and transport, Harper wondered why the hell these guys couldn't have arrived sooner. Before all that pork blocked his view, he counted eight dead Nietzscheans. The ones Sio nailed might have been out of sight somewhere, so he had no idea how many went down total. Seriously not bad.

"Siobhan Barrett. I guess that explains the Nietzschean hit squad. We didn't have anyone shooting up our streets before you arrived."

Somebody'd seen too many holodramas.

"My attorneys are on the line right now to deal with this situation," she answered. At the officer's look of surprise, she said, "Given our itinerant lifestyle, we retain counsel with a firm that has offices everywhere and representatives available at all times. I've been persecuted by Dragans before, which makes having counsel ready very useful. I'm taking the liberty of recording our conversation as well, Officer Patelis."

"What?"

From her arm the officer's voice said, "Siobhan Barrett. I guess that explains the Nietzschean hit squad. We didn't have anyone shooting up our streets before you arrived."

"I can set up a line with my attorney for you," she said, her expression carefully blank.

He looked much warier now. "You can give your story to your attorney in the morning, and we'll take it from him. Please don't leave the city."

Amazing how the law changed when you had money and lawyers on your side. No lock up, no surrendering of weapons, no grilling.

"My companions, Seamus Zelazny Harper and Tyr Anasazi, are also covered by my representative for this incident," Sio said smoothly. "The man in Mr. Anasazi's grip is one of my attackers, and I'd really appreciate it if he didn't disappear. He may be a flight risk."

The officer looked really pissed off, but resigned too. "We'll take him." Tyr reluctantly released the Dragan into the custody of three officers, and Harper wondered if they'd ever see him again.

"Please, sir," Sio said, "I have a very valuable piece of equipment I use in my profession left in the transport. I'd like to get it."

He smirked. "Your attorney will have to ask for it. You're free to go for now." He walked off.

Harper would have been impressed if the guy had done that to somebody who wasn't a friend of his. "Son of a--"

Sio put her hand on his arm. "Leave it. I think we pushed him hard enough for one night. Besides, everything in that box is just a copy. I'd never bring an original anywhere. I can do without the gear for a few days. Let's walk."

"I'm covered by your attorney?" Tyr asked, sounding deeply amused.

"For now. It makes things easier."

"What about the driver?" Harper asked.

"Downtime's attorneys will have him. Lawyers get really bitchy when other lawyers try to snatch their people out from under them."

"One of the officers is approaching us," Tyr said, and they turned as almost one unit to face the guy. Harper stifled the urge to laugh.

The guy handed Sio's battered clip box to her, saying, "I love your work. You're just.... I saw you weave about a year and a half ago and...." Obviously flustered, he ran off. She shouted her thank you after him.

"What are the odds?" Harper asked.

"Since only a fan would have even the slightest idea what my gear looks like, pretty good."

"Shane gets all the _good_ groupies, you say," Harper said with a smirk.

Sio grinned. "Yeah, yeah. Speaking of Shane, I better get back to the Exile. I'm sure he's heard all about this by now."

When they reached the spaceport and the Exile, they had that one immediately confirmed. Looking really ticked off, even in silhouette with the lights behind him, Shane leaned in the Exile's doorway, his arms crossed, then walked down the ramp to them. "What the hell happened? I got a call from the authorities and our attorneys. And who the hell's the Uber with you?" His eyes passed right over Harper, ignoring him.

Sio's spine went ramrod straight. "Apparently, between me being who I am and Shay being a crewmember of the Andromeda Ascendant, we were too tempting a target for some Dragans looking for trouble. The Nietzschean is one of Shay's crew, and he's a Kodiak. He mixed in after the fight started and helped us."

"Like the Pride matters."

Sio did an eye movement that only someone who knew her as well as Harper or Shane would understand meant "I know." Tyr bristled, showing teeth even, but said nothing.

Shane had his hands all over her looking for injuries while she sighed and endured it. Sio said, "No harm done." Except for the dead Dragans, and nobody standing there considered that "harm." "The authorities tried to get uppity with us, but I headed them off at the pass. I have to give my full statement to our representatives tomorrow."

"Our attorneys are amused."

"I'll bet. Well, there's no such thing as bad publicity."

"Yeah, but our insurance premiums keep going up."

"Next time I'll just let the Nietzscheans kill me."

"I'm glad you're okay." He kissed her forehead. "We have a performance tomorrow**\--**well, today now-- and you do remember that we have to rehearse with the local talent, right?"

"Yes, master, I know." She turned to Harper and Tyr. "Good night, guys. Thanks for helping out, Tyr." She even managed to say it without sounding phony. "You coming to see us play tomorrow-today, Shay?"

"Unless something major gets in the way."

"Your whole crew's invited in for free. Remember to tell 'em that. I'll have them on the list."

Harper smirked at Shane going into apoplexy behind her. "I will." He wondered what Tyr was making of all this.

Sio leaned down to kiss Harper, slowly, lingeringly, and he kissed back, adding a bit of tongue. When she backed away, she asked, "Okay, who were you doing while I was working? Never mind, don't wanna know."

Girl was uncanny. "How did you know?"

"You don't drink Midori, but you taste a bit like it. How you get to live the rock 'n' roll lifestyle _I'm_ supposed to be having...."

"Life sucks, Sio."

"Siobhan." Shane almost growled it.

"Yeah, yeah. Good night, everybody." She waved jauntily, then followed Shane into the ship.

Still bouncing a little, Harper said, "Damn, now I'm too adrenalized to sleep."

Tyr followed Harper as he walked away. "I found a venue that offers what appears to be paintball, as you had mentioned it." If Tyr sounded any more elaborately nonchalant, he'd be dead.

"Paintball?"

"The basic concept seems to match."

"Are you offering to play me?"

"Are you interested?"

Harper considered. Here he was now, having had a 19-hour day so far, wandering around during the wee hours of the morning after a night of fucking, dancing, more fucking, and defending his life against a small Dragan hit squad.

Why not? "Yeah. Let's play."

  


* * *

It _was_ paintball. The gun had a nice weight and feel in Harper's hands, and it didn't take much effort to jigger it to fire its pellets faster and harder. Hey, he had a Nietzschean for an opponent. Hell, Tyr would be disappointed if Harper didn't take every advantage he could.

The course had also been just about tailor-made for Harper, providing lots of covers, ramps, holes, hatches, tunnels, and ladders. And a cover of near darkness, studded with a few low, dim lights. This might be fun.

It was. He dove, shot, climbed, jumped, rolled, and dodged. Laughed even, which Tyr would then yell back was a sign of weakness revealing his position, but even Tyr didn't sound as dead serious as he might have, especially after Harper pointed out that Tyr yelling that he was revealing his position revealed _his_ position. Harper had some bright green stains on the borrowed coveralls he wore from shots he'd taken--and bruises underneath, probably--but Tyr had some blue stains on his.

But then Tyr suddenly dropped down behind him and instinct took over. Harper whirled and fired. Point blank. At Tyr's neck. Tyr rolled backward with it, but even he wasn't fast enough to avoid the shot. He hit the floor hard, on his back, and didn't move.

Only a little concerned, Harper moved as far away from Tyr's gun hand as he could and waited, his gun trained down on Tyr. Tyr still didn't move. Oh, crap. Oh-- Hey, wait a minute. Tyr wasn't "not moving" in quite the right way. Harper waited.

Eventually, Tyr said, eyes still closed, voice very dry, "Aren't you going to check to see if I'm unhurt?" He sounded hoarse though, so the pellet fired at his throat hadn't been completely harmless.

"Don't have to now, buddy."

Tyr laughed, then winced a little.

"You see," Harper said, "that's the problem with being famous for being sneaky. People start expecting you to be sneaky. Someday you'll be _really_ hurt, and I won't do a thing because you cried wolf so many times. And who will you have to blame? Nobody but yourself."

"I'll keep that in mind. Will you help me to my feet?"

Harper sneered. "You think I'm crazy?"

Tyr chuckled again and stood on his own. "Excellent show."

"You surprised me."

"In a good way, apparently. You do better with these weapons than the light-firing ones used on the ship. I think the sounds these guns make better trigger your survival instincts. The course also favored your strengths."

"It'll happen now and then."

"I'm merely analyzing our match. I do not mean to take away from the prowess you showed this morning."

Uhm. Well. "If you say anything like 'that's my boy,' I'll have to lambaste you, you know that, right?"

Tyr snorted.

"We done?" Harper asked. "I'm finally tired enough that I'm starting to get a bit loopy."

"'Starting'?"

Harper flipped him off. Tyr grabbed him by the arm and shook him a bit in what was probably a friendly way. His life was _deeply_ strange.

Actual fatigue really started to hit sometime on their way back to the Maru. Harper didn't remember anything after that.

Something kind of woke Harper up. Almost. Tyr greeted his interrogatory sound with a "Go back to sleep."

"Then stop rocking the boat," Harper mumbled as Tyr climbed over him. Eventually movement stopped and he drifted back down into sleep and a fuzzy awareness of Dylan and Tyr talking.

Eventually he woke up again from feeling a chill on his back. Opening his eyes, he pulled the covers up and saw Dylan seated, slouching, in the bunk across from his. A top bunk. "Hey, Dylan."

Dylan appeared to be almost folded in half and not comfortably. "Good morning, Harper." Not saying anything else. Looking like he didn't know what else he should say through the flood of bad things to say he wanted to voice.

We now return to Seamus Zelazny Harper's miserable real life, already in progress.

Harper realized that he was lying in the bunk Tyr had taken and remembered Tyr climbing over him this morning. You'd think that he just used his own bunk to store stuff. Laughing his ass off probably wouldn't make anything any better. Telling Dylan that he'd slept with two people, neither of whom were Tyr or Oriya, yesterday probably wouldn't make anything any better either, though it might be fun just for the look on Dylan's face.

Harper's head hurt. Definitely had too much rum last night. Sio had much more experience with putting away the demon stuff than he did.

Finally Dylan said quietly, "You have bruises on your back and arms. And the side of your face." Dylan put a hand to the left side of his own face, covering his cheekbone, in illustration.

When Harper mirrored the gesture, his face felt a bit tender there. He hadn't even noticed last night. It hadn't happened during paintball. Maybe this was part of why his head hurt.

At least he'd retained the sense to take his shirt off before going to bed last night, because he'd have a lot more bruises on his arms this morning otherwise from all the pins on the sleeves. "Paintball pellets sting when they hit." Say that Tyr had bruises too, yes or no? No. "I didn't know about my face. Must have happened when the transport got knocked over and I went flying. Did Tyr tell you that we get attacked by Dragans last night?"

"He mentioned an attack, and I've been trying to get access to the one Dragan in police custody. I'd appreciate a different perspective than Tyr's own on the incident."

"Like maybe mine? Sure. The transport was driving Sio and me back to her ship from the club when the Dragans hit. It went over. They fired on the transport a lot. We went out through the trunk escape and blasted them to hell. Tyr showed up to grab the last living one. We think. Some might have run off that we didn't notice, since we were firing from the trunk with the lid partially closed."

When Harper sat up and swung his legs over the side to dangle, he noticed that Dylan looked relieved. What the hell? Harper looked at his bare feet and rumpled pants. It couldn't be that Dylan had thought he'd been lying naked in Tyr's bed? If so, it looked like Dylan was torturing himself really well all by himself. That made things a bit easier.

Beka rushed in, a smirk in full bloom. "You're finally up. Good. You've been on the news all morning."

"And you're dying to see my reaction."

"Hell, yes."

"Great." Harper vaulted down from Tyr's bunk and followed her out.

"Even without the news footage, it looks like you had some night."

"Bite me."

"My favorite was the trash feed that started, 'Siobhan Barrett, marked for death by the Dragans for the crime. Of. Failing. To. Die!' Perfectly shameless. You got a mention in that one as her 'lithe guttersnipe companion.'"

"Great." Sighing, Harper plugged in and checked out the morning's various news feeds, which left him torn between wanting to laugh or cry. The Dragan death count fluctuated by time and channel. He was variously Siobhan Barrett's new lover, old friend, business associate, and playtoy, but everybody had figured out that he was a member of the Andromeda Ascendant's crew. A few mentioned him by name, and one even posited a connection between him and the "SZ Harper" who had a design credit on Sio's arm. Nobody had any idea what to make of Tyr's very obviously Nietzschean presence helping her out.

The urge to laugh faded as everybody mentioned that Sio had faced more death threats and attempts since the failed effort to liberate Earth, and that the Dragans might have struck last night for fear that she could be striking some kind of deal with the Andromeda Ascendant. Some reports wondered if Dylan had any special objectives for having operatives here. The theater would be increasing security. Some ticket-holders had already demanded refunds, but many more had bought in.

Visual footage of them post-attack last night showed up everywhere, and Harper didn't even know where it could have come from. Did Rigol have cameras around everywhere just in case? Some cities did. Attempts to brighten the footage had left the visuals looking obviously manipulated and him almost unrecognizable from what the brightening had done with the pins on his sleeves and that streak of reflective silver powder Sio had put on his face. Coincidence?

"I wanted to keep a low profile here," Dylan said.

"Do we ever keep a low profile anywhere?" Beka asked.

"Point taken."

"We all have free invites to the show," Harper said. He'd be more surprised if the Dragans _didn't_ make another attempt on her then.

"I don't think I can afford to miss it," Dylan replied.

"Sio'll be thrilled." He wondered if she'd take the opportunity to say anything to Dylan. It might be fun.

  


* * *

Not knowing when he'd get the chance again after this vacation, Harper spent his in-between time surfing, happily soaking up the sun. _Just_ surfing, since neither Oriya nor Tallien showed up. Surfing alone left him jazzed enough that he thoroughly enjoyed his day, coming to shore only when extreme hunger drove him there, then heading back out. Tomorrow he could do wind surfing.

Nobody fondled him in the shower afterward, to his profound disappointment.

When he showed up at the Maru to change into whatever he'd be wearing to the show, only Dylan was there to greet him. "What do you wear to this kind of thing?" Dylan asked, trying so hard to stay low key.

Must have been a blow to Dylan to wake up alone the next morning and spend the day alone, his little problem with Harper not as cured by sex and one night's sleep together as he'd thought. Harper almost felt bad for him on that. Almost.

"It's not like the symphony. You don't have to dress up if you don't want to. Sio personally likes tight leather on men." Give her some idea what had drawn Harper's eye that way. "Haven't decided how I'm doing myself up yet myself." Harper picked up last night's shirt, finding the earring Sio had leant him under it, from a nearby table and tossed it to Dylan. "If I hadn't sweated so much in that last night, I might have used it again."

After Dylan straightened the shirt out, he took a good look at it and got this vaguely dazed expression. "You wore this last night?" He traced the length of a shiny sleeve pin with his finger in a way that made Harper squirm.

Sitting on a nearby bottom bunk, Harper kept his voice nonchalant. "I know the news feeds didn't give anybody a good look at it."

"Then I'm sorry I missed seeing you come in this morning."

"It's a fancier, fabricated version of stuff I threw together and wore all the time back in the day." Harper put the earring on. He'd have to take it off again before he changed, but at least this way he wouldn't lose track of it again.

Dylan's hands clenched on the shirt. "I think I'll go with the leather then."

The whole scene made Harper feel sad and uncomfortable. "Sio will approve. Gotta get dressed too."

When Harper stood, Dylan moved to stand near him, facing him, not close enough to crowd or be overbearing about it, but close enough that Harper could feel his warmth. To Harper's annoyance, his body reacted to that nearness by basking in it, loosening and leaning into it a little. He usually avoided contact because it so often went right to his head like this, and he'd long ago resigned himself to his body--with its weak immune system and sensitivities and occasional neediness--and his mind being at odds.

Speaking of which.... "The other night... didn't solve anything, did it?" Dylan asked softly.

"No. And I woke up feeling really angry with myself the next morning."

"That wasn't what I wanted."

"I know. You can't just push me, okay? That never works. Look, I have to get dressed." Harper didn't look back as he went to get a change of clothing. He couldn't.

  


* * *

Everybody, except Tyr, showed up at the Maru to leave together for the performance, and they'd all dressed in at least some tight leather, which amused the hell out of Harper. The theater's door guy checked their guns and gave them tickets for them, then directed them to some great, but not quite honor seats. Nobody would notice them here. "Smart move," Dylan murmured.

"Sio's been playing in the deep end of the pool for a while, so she knows her business, Dylan," Harper said, and to his surprise Dylan seemed to understand what he meant.

It made him a bit nervous to have Dylan sitting next to him, but Dylan made no moves on him. To his annoyance, part of him felt disappointed. One of these days he'd figure out what he wanted.

When the curtains rose on the Barretts with Loose Wire, Shihf Anansa, and the Than Drumming Thunder symphony and they started to play, Harper lost himself in the music. Well, mostly. He took some time to see how everybody else took to it.

Rommie looked interested but not as much as she had during the street show, when Sio had been manipulating at least five different things at once with her implants. This music was mostly live, and the theater's guy did a lot of the sound work. Trance bobbed her head, looking more like her old self. He tried not to be nervous about the look of anticipation on her face, since she could be anticipating the music, not badness. Beka seemed to be enjoying it, though she preferred it when the Barretts worked with harder edged musicians. Dylan concentrated mostly on Sio, so much so that Harper couldn't tell if he even liked the music.

Three songs in, Sio said into her mic, "And now for something a little different." The Than strings and drums laid down a foreboding background, then Sio stepped to the forefront, the lights shining off her arm, and started to play as if the music was beating at her insides to come out. A pre-recorded sample of her voice from an old interview said, "I know where I came from." More foreboding, more foreboding--"But I don't know where I'm going"--then Loose Wire and Shane kicked in with a blizzard of driving but harmonizing sound. Shane and Sio sang "Words," but this time her voice was on top and his seemed like the harmony. Everyone on stage played with speed, aggression, and concentration.

"Words," about being far from home and the fear that home might not even exist anymore if you ever did get back, always hit Harper pretty deeply, but this time all that sound, all that new music, hinted at an even greater depth of heartsickness and fury than usual. All those different lines of music weaving in and out... Sio's style, not Shane's, and Harper heard touches of her mech music all over the song.

Maybe Shane had ceased to be the one constant in an ever-changing universe. Harper would have to grin about that later, when he wasn't so caught up in the music.

The song finally ended in a roar of power and a last voice sample of "Who knew that saying 'I'm alive' would offend so many people?" The audience exploded into applause. Sio looked like _she_ would explode from happiness, and she grinned hard at Shane, who nodded back at her. "Thank you!" she shouted over the applause. "The drum, strings, and voice sample work come from a concept by Song of Evening." One very flustered looking Bug stood and quickly bowed, then sat back down. The Than in the audience made their weird version of applause even louder. "And now back to your regularly scheduled program."

Something exploded on stage. "Everybody get down!" Sio shouted, but the audience panicked instead and milled around. Typical. Harper tried to get up to leap over the chairs to the stage, but Rommie's vise grip on his arms held him back. As he struggled to get loose, he heard Dylan yelling something to Rommie. Then she pushed Harper down a bit and shielded him with her body, and they rocked as things hit her from behind. Somebody was shooting at him too?

He watched through the space between the seats in front of him as Nietzscheans showed up on stage out of just about nowhere, with one grabbing Sio around the neck and pulling her into a stranglehold. "This ends here!" he shouted. "Now we execute--"

Before he could finish his sentence Sio moved her head far to the side and punched him hard in the head with her metal fist. When he just growled and tightened his grip, shaking her like a ragdoll and making her cords and guitar whip about in the process, she triggered Plan B under his chin, blowing the top of his head off. He stayed standing for a moment, then fell, almost dragging Sio down with him. Splattered with blood and other things, she stood staring blankly for a moment, then ran to the side of the stage for cover.

Shane and Security shot down the other attackers, while Dylan and Beka managed to calm the audience's panic. Rommie finally let Harper go, and he ran to Sio, who looked a bit shocky. Well, she just had someone's head blow up next to hers. He grabbed her by the shoulder and asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm actually dripping," she answered. "Plan B," she said.

"Yeah." The hatch on her hand had smoothly closed again, and all of her cords seemed to still be securely plugged in. When he touched her face, his fingers slid in all the slightly tacky, slowly drying blood. "Did he pull anything out? Were you running anything when you shot him? How's your hearing?"

"Everything stayed plugged in. I didn't have any programs running. I always wear sound modulators in my ears to protect them while I perform. But thanks, guy." She looked around and shook her head. "This is a bit of a mess. Don't think my attorneys will be able to tap dance me clear of this one without me getting grilled over an open flame first." Especially not with her having used Plan B in public when concealed firearms were such a big no-no.

"Big confusion going around. Maybe nobody noticed."

"I'm never that lucky."

Trance crouched down beside them and did a more professional evaluation of Sio's physical state. She also elbowed some concerned Than Thunder drummers from the band out of the way.

"How is she?" Shane shouted as he ran over, done hunting Dragans, Harper guessed.

"Physically, she's fine. Mentally might not be so simple," Trance said.

"I've seen worse," Sio said.

Dylan rushed up at the head of a small army of security guards and cops. "Harper?" he asked.

"We seem to be all right here for now." But he pointed his head at all the folks behind Dylan.

Dylan sighed. Yeah, he got it that things might not be all right much longer.

  


* * *

The cops didn't even let Sio clean up before they took her in for grilling along with Shane. They couldn't detach Harper from her arm no matter what they did, and Dylan, "as Mr. Harper's captain," refused to leave him. Rommie, colored lights showing through the holes in her back and shoulders, refused to be left out of anything involving either of them. The Rigolians drew the line at letting Beka and Trance in too. All of these people in the room on their side gave Harper some greater confidence that Sio and Shane would get out of this. He had no confidence in cops whatsoever.

Of course, Rigol's authority backed up his paranoia beautifully: trying to cut the Barretts off from legal representation, threatening them, being as hostile and insinuating as possible while interviewing them about the show's events. Dylan backed the Barretts up all the way, which gave Harper some hope and made it hard for him to keep his face blank. Damn, Dylan could talk to these kinds of people. Must be the military training, with all the damned stupid hierarchies and regulations.

"We are the victims here," Shane said.

"Your sister has a concealed weapon."

"It's her _arm_, and it saved her life! Rigol doesn't discriminate against cyborgs, who have hidden enhancements, so why would you discriminate against her?"

"We can't protect you, and your presence creates an atmosphere of danger for innocents around you. I'm not so sure that we can continue to invite you back under these circumstances, and I doubt we'll be alone in that assessment."

Fuck, oh fuck. Harper tightened his hand in Sio's. She squeezed back.

Dylan said, afire with righteous indignation, "Your response to Dragan violence is to further victimize the victims. There's no justice in that, and it certainly doesn't make you look good to galactic community." Go, Dylan!

"We have to protect our citizens."

"By making it impossible for two musicians who haven't harmed anyone except in self-defense to pursue their profession and make a living? At best, you're attacking a symptom while leaving the disease free to claim more victims. You're collaborating with the Dragans."

"Your feud with the Dragans is not ours, Captain Hunt."

"No, but it's my feud as well," Charlemagne Bolivar purred as he and his minions elbowed some officers out of the way to get in. At the looks of Rigolian outrage directed his way, he said, "This concerns Sabra-Jaguar. I had to see the musicians who helped the Dragans make even greater idiots of themselves." Everybody turned to face him and stood, not trusting him at their backs.

Harper had such a bad feeling about this, and the look in Dylan's eyes suggested that he wasn't alone. Sio and Shane _definitely_ did.

"You shouldn't be here," the Rigolian official said.

"I mean no harm. In fact, I'd like to offer Sabra-Jaguar's support and protection to the musicians you'd like to throw to the wolves."

"That's a... generous offer but unnecessary," Shane answered immediately.

Generous. Bolivar wanted to poke the Dragans and take away a lot of the Barretts' authority with the slave worlds and other expatriates in one shot.

"It would look churlish of you to refuse our help. We could take insult at that and strike back, but all we'd really have to do is keep trying to help you."

"We would lose even more audience members if they felt that Nietzscheans were shoving us down their throats."

"How racist and unenlightened of you to think that."

"We escaped Earth. We're not going to become anyone else's property now."

"This is unnecessary," Dylan told Bolivar.

"I think it's very necessary," Bolivar purred. "And isn't a good deed its own reward?"

"This is no good deed."

"Oh, come now, Dylan, you're not going to put up a fuss over two musicians you don't even know, not when you could stand to lose so much by crossing Sabra-Jaguar's wishes. You have a better grasp of your priorities than that."

If so, Harper didn't share those priorities. He'd stayed quiet and unobtrusive before, fully aware of how much hinged on things going well here, but this couldn't go on. Sabra-Jaguar didn't get to fuck over anyone else he knew, especially not since Bolivar's wife's stupidity had led the Andromeda into the trap that had delayed them too long to help Earth. Harper just had to figure out how many people he had to kill and how to do it.

But Bolivar smiled at Harper. "Now, now, you don't want anything to happen to me, not since I already announced my plans to my Pride before I entered this room. It will go on no matter what happens to me here."

Harper shook his head. "Hunh. You know, I still want something to happen to you. Funny, isn't it?"

Dylan grabbed Sio's prosthetic arm before she could do whatever she'd been planning to do and grabbed Harper's arm with his other hand for similar reasons. "I have my priorities straight," Dylan said, "and what you plan is unacceptable. I'd have to break the alliance over it."

Harper almost couldn't breathe. He'd just imagined those last two sentences, right? Dylan squeezed his wrist lightly.

"You must be joking," Bolivar answered. "You would toss aside the services of the Sabra-Jaguar fleet for two--"

"Kludges?" Dylan asked. "Slaves? Partly, but your actions today would also set a precedent for our association that I refuse to allow. If I let you undercut me now, you'll only do it again. It would be a show of weakness on my part. Deciding not to follow through with this 'protection' doesn't lose you anything. Following through loses you the alliance, the Andromeda, and any legitimacy we bring."

"Not following through loses me face."

"Do you really think the Rigolians would say anything?"

Bolivar sneered at the cowering officials. "True. But the... musicians are famous for being mouthy."

But Bolivar was talking about it, thinking about it.

"Who would believe us if we told people that Nietzscheans had offered to protect us?" Shane asked.

Bolivar actually laughed. "Also true. And my Pride?"

"You were joking," Harper answered, his teeth only slightly gritted. "You're a guy with a wild sense of humor. I mean, really, what a hilarious idea you had. If they don't laugh when you get back, you could always shoot them."

"I could always shoot them. Well, Dylan, you and yours have convinced me that my idle wondering about the possibility of involving my Pride with these Barretts should stay idle. Congratulations." His amused eyes settled on Harper. "Though you might want to keep an eye on your excitable engineer. Or a leash."

Harper could show him "excitable." That Uber hadn't even seen him excitable yet.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't tell me how to discipline my crew," Dylan answered, sounding dangerous.

Bolivar grinned. "Until we meet again, Dylan. Oh, and nice ass. You should encase it in leather more often." He signaled to his minions, who trooped out after him.

Once they'd left, Dylan turned to the Rigolian officials and asked, "Is there anything _you'd_ like to add?"

"Not at all. We're happy to support the arts," the lead guy said, probably figuring that Dylan had just extended the Commonwealth's protection over the Barretts.

Which he had sort of done. Harper was still in shock.

"You're all free to go," the guy continued. "No charges."

"Thank you," Shane said.

Everybody seemed to get the thought that they'd be better off leaving the room before the officials changed their minds, because they all turned and walked out nearly as a single unit. Harper heard Sio mutter, "I already sent a recording of the official word to the attorneys. The Sabra-Jaguar stuff I'm keeping just for us for insurance," to Shane. Beka and Trance ran up, with Beka saying, "I contacted Tyr and told him to go to the ship and sent for transport for us."

"Good work, Beka," Dylan said.

"What was Bolivar doing here? Aside from making trouble."

"Nothing... other than making trouble."

Trance somehow had all of their guns and Dylan's force lance back from the authorities and handed them over. Harper decided not to question it.

"You better fill me in later," Beka said. "Transport's here."

They squeezed into it and Didn't Talk about what had happened, all the lives on a see-saw in a big poker game for high stakes, played out in a private room in minutes. Harper handled the gun stuff a lot easier. Rommie's holes still blinked and glowed, while the blood on Sio's face had dried to a flaky rust color. Noticing his notice, Rommie took on a rueful look and squeezed his wrist in a gentle "I'm fine" way.

He wondered why he had to be sitting perched on Beka's knee when just about everybody else had at least a bit of a seat under their asses. Beka may have been the light of his heart, but she had a very uncomfortable knee.

"The media's howling for some official word," Sio said.

"In the absence of official word, they seem to be enjoying the opportunity to create their own," Rommie said.

Sio closed her eyes. "I just called in an us sighting across town. Hopefully that'll draw some of the journalists away from the spaceport."

"You do this often?" Dylan asked.

"More times than I should have to."

It further helped when the transport driver refused to slow down as they reached the spaceport entrance, nearly running some journalists over. After they dropped Beka and Trance off at the Maru and then reached the Exile, the driver thanked Shane by name as they paid up. Harper figured that it must be good having fans.

And attorneys, it turned out, because the Barretts' gear waited on the Exile's ramp for them. At Dylan's look, Shane answered, "Our attorneys take care of this for us too when we need it. We pay them enough. No way were we leaving Sio's Stratocaster reproduction behind or in the hands of amateurs." To the ship Shane said, "Shane Patrick Nicholas Barrett. Four-one-nine-eight-one-niner-B."

The genuinely warm welcome for guests code. As opposed to the unwelcome intruder guests code and the grudging guests code. Good to know where you stood with the Barretts.

The ship answered in that measured version of Sio's voice, "Welcome, Sio, Shane, Seamus, and guests."

"I have to start up the Exile and declare our departure," Shane said.

Dylan said, "I think it'd be wise if Control heard me talking in the background while you're announcing."

"Good point. Come along in, then."

Harper pulled his scanner out of the back of his jacket and checked the containers for detonators and bugs, to Sio's amusement. He was a regular Boy Scout, always prepared. Sio, Harper, and even Rommie started to pick up the gear and haul it into the ship, with Sio directing Rommie on where things went. Of course, Rommie hefted twice as much as they did.

"This brings back memories," Harper said.

"Throwing things in right before we go on the run? You almost sound nostalgic," Sio answered.

"Sio, clean up and get your ass in here!" Shane shouted.

"The romance is gone. I probably have to record an 'I'm fine' greeting. Be back when I can."

With Rommie helping--actually, with Rommie doing most of the work--it didn't take long to pull everything inside and secure it. Sio hadn't cleaned the gunk off her face before launching into her "I'm fine, and we're heading off-planet just like we planned to; thank you to all my fans" message for a camera. She never had believed in pulling her punches.

With Shane strapped into the pilot's seat waiting for clearance, they all stopped to lean against something and take a breath. Even Rommie seemed to be relaxing for a moment. Then Dylan suddenly said to Sio, "You're dying to tell me off, I can tell."

"Hunh?" Harper asked. This could lead to badness.

"You should have seen the looks she was sending me during the concert."

"Only once in a while," Sio answered, glancing at Harper. "It would be... churlish now that you've stood up for us, Captain Hunt, almost destroying an important treaty in the process."

"Be churlish."

Harper asked, "You really sure you want that?" He couldn't tell if idiocy, some bizarre conception of fairness, or something else had started this.

"No, but I think I should find out where the hate comes from."

"'Hate' may not be exactly the word...." Sio answered. "You're sure about this?"

"Yes."

"Okay, but remember, you asked me to." Sio took a deep breath. "Not many people escape Earth or the slave worlds. Some of us who have get together once in a while. When we heard that a Commonwealth-era ship and captain had surfaced and intended to make the known worlds a better place to live, we had some hope that finally someone would care. After all, you remember Earth from when it was a thriving world, before it was raped, plundered, and stomped on. When I found out that you had someone from Earth on your crew, someone known to shoot off his mouth about what he believes in," -- she shot a smile at Harper, who smirked back, even as he worried about where she intended to go with this -- "I really started to hope. But your actions have shown us that we were being far too optimistic and trusting. What you did and didn't do with Earth--don't look at Shay, because people are putting together your role in that disaster on their own, you're not _that_ slick--showed us what you really are."

"They're putting it together?" Dylan asked, paling.

"As best they can, which is imperfectly since not much news got out considering how many people involved there _died_, but rumors have suggested a ship that could only be yours. Other rumors connected to that one suggest that you sent a crewmember down first, and anybody familiar with your crew knows who that person would probably be. Dragans will want him dead for rabble rousing, and a lot of people connected with the slave worlds will want him dead for not following through with _your_ promises. Fortunately for you, and for Shay, these are just rumors for now and haven't made the rounds. But they might. Though not from my lips, since I love Shay too much to put a target on his back."

Oh, damn. And Dylan looked like he had something caught in his throat.

Sio continued, "The Earth debacle showed us that you're just another player in the game like all the others, and you only do the things that benefit you."

Impossibly, Dylan looked even more stricken. "I have to be practical."

"Millions died because you decided to _toy_ in Earth's politics. Commit yourself or don't. Don't start to commit yourself, then pull back so your unsupported allies get slaughtered. People are watching you, Captain Hunt; you have too much firepower and mix into other people's concerns too often to be ignored. I just hope you're thinking of how you look to others and what the consequences of your actions are." Sio looked at Harper. "The universal consequences and the personal, close-to-home ones. Don't trust that good intentions automatically lead to good results. Don't hurt Shay when you don't have to. Those of us who don't know you were heartbroken when your promises turned out to be the same old thing in a new package. I can't imagine how it felt to be in your inner circle and still get shafted."

She looked down. "What you did today gives me some hope and makes it easier for me to leave Shay with you."

"What, you were gonna knock me out and drag me away with you if he hadn't done something like this?" Harper had to ask, annoyed and amused.

"I don't know. It depended on whether I hated your captain on sight and thought you needed a rescue. From yourself or from him."

"I can defend myself."

"Don't think I didn't notice the practical side of his actions today."

"It sounds like you've already made up your mind about me," Dylan said quietly.

"Prove me wrong about you. I'd love it if you did," Sio answered.

Rommie looked torn. She wanted to defend her captain, but he'd asked for this. Harper was wondering how _he_ should react to this, so why should she be any different? Sio stood there as the bloodied, living example of the unforeseen consequences of Dylan making that promise and failing it, and she was only still "living" though her own efforts.

"We have clearance," Shane said. "For some reason it seems that folks want us to leave here as fast as possible. Go figure."

"Goodbye time, then," Sio said. "Hey, Shay, my reply message should reach you any month now."

"Would be nice."

She pulled him into a hug and kissed him, her lips tasting vaguely iron-like. If Rommie hadn't been there he would have passed some information along, but Rommie would notice whispers or a comm burst. Later on he'd have to send the information about Elsbett Bolivar's role in the Andromeda being too late to save Earth, hidden in a different message.

Nietzscheans believed that stupidity had costs, so let somebody give it to her.

"'Til we meet again," Sio said. "And treat him well, would ya, Hunt? Nice meeting you, Andromeda."

Dylan looked very disgruntled, but he was probably wondering how much she knew and how much Harper had told her. "Of course."

"Thanks for the help, Captain Hunt," Shane said.

"You're welcome." He scowled at Sio, but she just gave him her cockiest look.

"'Bye, guys," Harper said.

Harper, Dylan, and Rommie got out and watched the Exile take off. From a safe distance away, of course. Dylan noticed Security clubbing some guy nearby, but Harper took his arm and dragged him away in the direction of the Maru instead. At least he tried to, though Dylan outweighed him.

"We can't let that--" Dylan started.

"It's a journalist, who shouldn't be in here. If you save him, do you want to give him an interview?"

Dylan smirked. "Not really."

"There are good reasons why no unauthorized personnel are allowed in the spaceport. Lawsuits, nosy journalists, people getting fried by lifting or landing ships and then suing. Security is just enforcing the law. Now let's go." Harper noticed the evil smile on Rommie's face and grinned back at her.

Tyr, gun in hand, met them at the Maru's hatch. "It would seem that I dismissed today's group activity too quickly," he said.

"My activities are always fun and educational," Dylan replied as they rushed in and locked the hatch behind them.

Tyr kept giving Harper the eye, so Harper asked, "What?"

"I heard that you were a target." A hint of concern colored Tyr's voice.

"I shielded Harper, Tyr," Rommie answered as she took off her recently ventilated jacket. "If you'd like, you can count my holes to find out how badly Harper had ticked them off."

"Speaking of," Harper said, "I'd like to fix those once we hit space. I assume we're not sticking around any longer."

Dylan nodded. "We've made too big a splash to continue vacationing in peace here, so we'll have to go elsewhere."

"I could use a vacation from my vacation, yeah."

Tyr snorted and walked toward the cockpit. Harper shook his head at him, then did a walk around Rommie. "Wow, that one went right through your shoulder," he said. "That's gonna take some work to fix."

"It creased your jacket," Rommie said, not as calmly as she might have.

Not just his jacket either, because when he took it off he saw a rip through his shirt and a shallow gash across the top of his shoulder. "Shit. I never even felt it." It started to burn now, though.

Suddenly he had his face against Dylan's chest and Dylan clasping him. He liked that. A lot. Probably way too much. Dylan let go of him just as suddenly and with a sorry, but Harper held on, breathing in leather and Dylan. "This isn't pushing," Harper mumbled.

Dylan, warm and solid, held him again and breathed into the hair at the top of his head. Harper had missed this, comfort and that contact high, a large hand at the small of his back and the back of his neck.

"Do you wish to make a public announcement as to our intentions?" Tyr asked, his voice wry.

"Yeah. Yeah, that would be a good idea," Dylan said as he slowly let Harper go.

As Dylan and Tyr walked to the cockpit, Harper gathered the tools he'd need for Rommie. "I could look at you now but not actually start the work until we're traveling steady." Better that than getting mushy over Dylan.

Harper's scanner found foreign matter in some of the holes, so tweezers and other grabbers would definitely be necessary, along with nanobots for some of the small stuff. Rommie stripped off her mesh and pleather shirt, revealing a surprisingly lacy black bra under it. Even with the holes in her body, peeling skin, and no-longer-interior blinking lights she looked hot. Ancient anime really had scarred his psyche. Then again, as an engineer and a guy, he got hit by her on two levels.

He could detect some motor weakness in her right arm with its holed-through shoulder just by watching her now that he knew to look, so that would need more work than a simple patch. The rest had to be determined.

"Sit here?" he asked as he took off his boots. Once she sat on the bunk he settled on it behind her, put on his magnifying glasses, and started taking a look at her. As he examined, he heard Dylan give his public announcement about them not having had any itinerary other than vacation and going somewhere else now to find some peace. He idly wondered where Dylan intended them to go. "How does it feel when I press here, Rom doll?"

"It doesn't feel like anything."

"Okay, _that's_ wrong."

"Take off your shirt, Harper," Trance suddenly said, standing nearby.

"Again?" Harper asked.

"Yes."

"It's just a graze!" Which hadn't even stung anymore until she'd brought it up again. "C'mon!"

"Let her fix you, Harper," Rommie said.

"She'll be sealing me up while I'm sealing you up. How circle of life can you get? Fine, fine." He removed his glasses first but still caught his shirt on his earring as he took it off, which reminded him of one reason why he'd stopped wearing ear jewelry. "You missed this earlier, Trance."

"Your jacket disguised it. Also, the blood and brain matter spattered across your friend's face distracted me."

"As so often happens."

"Lifting off," Beka said over the comm.

Harper reached for the wall grips, but Trance and Rommie just stayed seated. Show-offs. Harper half expected somebody to try to shoot them out of the sky, but their departure went smoother than he could have expected. Far smoother than they usually got from life. Go figure.

Soon enough Trance cleaned and sealed him up while he cleaned, fixed, and sealed Rommie up, which struck him as surreal. Since he just had a graze, Trance finished him pretty quickly. Rommie seemed nearly content under his hands and tools, even humming to herself. As opposed to her machinery humming to itself. When he recognized her tune as "Again," he hummed along, sometimes in harmony. Her skin felt human warm under his hands except for the damaged areas where the heat of her internal workings seeped through the holes. She smelled good, part the Commonwealth soap scents he'd designed in and part metal, plastics, electricity, and lubricants. Once he finished, she'd just smell of the Commonwealth soap scents.

Harper so lost himself in the meditative peace of repair work that it took him a bit to realize that Dylan had sat down on the bunk across from them. Harper gave him a jaunty salute from behind Rommie's shoulder. "Hey, mon capitan. Where are we off to now? Can't be too far away since we told Andromeda we'd be back soon."

"I was thinking along similar lines. Anywhere we went, we'd have to leave soon."

"So you're thinking that we should just go back to Andromeda and finish out our vacation there?"

"Actually, yeah. What do you think?"

"I see the sense in it. She expects us back, and any message we send to tell her that we're taking more time might take too long to reach her and worry her. I think it'll be easier for me to vacation on the ship this time."

Guilt crossed Dylan's face, sweet to see. "I imagine so," he answered, sounding subdued.

"I've been missing Andromeda anyway. Hope she hasn't been lonely."

Dylan's eyes flicked to Rommie sitting in front of Harper. Harper wondered if Dylan had noticed the changes to the avatar and what that meant to Andromeda as a whole. After all, he hadn't noticed that she loved him. Then again, maybe he didn't want to, because if he didn't see it he didn't have to deal with it.

Then again, Dylan seemed to have trouble looking at her in her bra.

For a while Dylan sat in silence, watching him work and hum, then said, "So that was Sio Barrett."

"Sho nuff. That was a good thing you did back there, even if you had practical reasons for it too."

"There's more than enough injustice around without me standing aside and adding to it. I never would have expected that my actions had added more danger to her life already."

"Dragans are a bunch of petty bastards."

"I'm sorry, Harper," Dylan said, then stood and walked back to the cockpit.

It sounded like they were starting to get somewhere.

"What are you smiling about?" Harper asked Rommie.

"Oh, nothing."

  


* * *

Holographic Rommie met them at the bottom of the ramp. "This should be an interesting story," she said. But she looked happy to see them.

"Which you'll get in full once we get ourselves settled," Dylan said.

"Harper?" she said.

He wondered why he'd been singled out until he remembered the bruise on his face. At least she couldn't see the bullet wound under the shirt he'd put on. "I'm fine. Long story, complete with Nietzscheans." Hell, all of his injuries and bruises were Nietzschean-related, including the paintball ones.

"Don't leave out the surfing or the prosthetic arm. Or the... earring."

"Rommie! You wound me."

"Not as much as some people apparently have."

  


* * *

To his own surprise, Harper slept a lot of his remaining vacation away. He hadn't thought that he'd tired himself out that badly from the surfing, sex, and fighting.

He must be getting old.

In one of his conscious periods, he put a holo message together for Sio, something along the lines of "hi, just got home fine, and this is what I'm up to," the kind of dull stuff that could be substituted for sleeping aids. But someone who knew to pay attention to the slight increase in volume at certain points, specifically on certain syllables, might find this message: "Elsbett Bolivar of Sabra-Jaguar fell for a trap and dragged the ship in with her. Thus, were too late and broke promise to me."

If Sio or her friends chose to do something lethal with that information, Harper wouldn't shed a tear.

Rommie sent it out without any questions or suspicions he could notice. It might take months, but eventually Sio would get it.

In the next week, Dylan didn't push or crowd him. At all. Harper felt a bit disappointed about that, especially since Dylan had been on exemplary behavior lately-- no bimbo-chasing or broken promises --and looked kind of lost and sad, while Harper had gone back to going steady with Johnny Fivefingers. And he missed Dylan, the company, the somebody to sleep with. At least they had a friendly thing still going, but it didn't feel the same, not with Dylan being so careful. Harper wondered if Dylan worried that he'd give in on a relationship out of gratitude for supporting Sio and Shane and so didn't want to prod in any way.

Harper really could use a good session of prodding, but he had his pride.

Life on the Andromeda took on a kind of routine, though one involving being shot at less than usual, which Harper was more than fine with. He couldn't say that things had returned to how they'd been before the Magog attack, not with him and Dylan dancing around one another, new recipe Trance, and Tyr taking such an interest in everybody. Tyr's current idea involved sparring sessions, something Harper hadn't been fast-mouthed enough to avoid, which was why he currently stood across from Tyr annoying the hell out of him.

"Will you stop running and dodging?" Tyr growled.

"I don't do hand to hand. I run my legs or my mouth, I trick or shoot people, I hide or squirm out of their reach, or I look for something to hit people with."

"If you're trying to anger me into making stupid moves--"

"--I seem to be doing a good job. You need a hobby or to get laid."

"I could say the same of you."

Grr. Though at least he hadn't asked if Harper intended to rectify that for him. "I have a hobby, and it happens to be my job too, lucky me. As for getting laid, at least my state of not getting some isn't making me torment other crewmembers."

"Attack me!"

"Why? I'll attack, then you'll foil me and tell me how complacent and pathetic I am instead of doing something useful like actually trying to train me to fight. You can feed your ego by yourself."

Harper dodged out of Tyr's reach again, this time tripping him for good measure. Growling in annoyance, Tyr grabbed him on the way down and pinned him to the floor. "That was a good start but you had no follow-through."

Damn Tyr was heavy. And evenly distributed. Harper squirmed and tried not to let the friction get him too excited, which was the last thing he wanted. "In real world conditions, I would have killed you while you were down. I don't think Dylan would approve here. You're _screwing up_ my battle instincts here with this practice shit."

Tyr took on a thoughtful look. "That's an intriguing perspective."

Harper had an idea and stopped struggling, going boneless. "Yeah?"

"I don't accept it, but it has some interest."

"Son of a bitch."

Tyr shifted a little, and Harper attacked with his knees and tried for a headbutt but failed. Tyr, almost sneering, said, "Too slow, and you telegraphed your plan too much with your muscles." Tyr kept breathing on him, shifting in that way, holding him down....

Aroused, frustrated, enraged, Harper went for a Boston special with teeth, clawing fingers, knees, and the full force of his whole body, all instinct. Tyr hadn't expected it this time. Harper rolled them and ended up on top, straddling Tyr, his hands thrusting down hard to cut off his air, harder than he would for a regular human because Nietzscheans didn't need oxygen as immediately as humans did. Tyr's hands stroked up his legs, fingers tangling briefly in the straps of his toolbelt on his thighs, before moving to his ass, which didn't match any self-defense method Harper had ever heard of, made him unwillingly harder, and pissed him off. Snarling, he pushed down with more force on Tyr's neck.

"Didn't you guys hear the-- Oh, wow," Beka said as she opened the door.

Tyr took advantage of Harper's distraction to knock him off and say, "We did not." He sounded hoarse.

Her eyebrow stayed raised. "Tyr, Dylan wants you on the bridge. You missed two calls."

Tyr stood and looked back at Harper, who was now sitting nearby trying to get himself under control. "We were distracted."

"I'll say," Beka answered.

"That was an... illuminating session, Harper," Tyr said.

"Yeah, I think we proved that the cocktease defense method really doesn't work very well," Harper answered. And he was _still_ hard.

Tyr's mouth quirked, giving him an unreadable expression. "I would disagree." Then he left the room.

"I've been putting him off," Beka said as she sat next to Harper, "but now I think I'll agree to a sparring session myself."

"Was he really cupping my ass? Felt like it."

"Oh, yeah. Did you like it?"

Avoid that question. "You think Tyr's into asphyxiation?"

"Who knows?"

"I'm tired of people trying to manipulate me by putting the moves on me."

"Yeah, that sucks. Not that anybody on the ship's been trying to do that to me."

Harper had to smile a little. "It's not all it's cracked up to be."

  


* * *

That evening Harper waited for Tyr outside Tyr's door. "What the hell was that today?" Harper asked.

"I'm not sure myself." Tyr sounded honest. And a bit upset with himself.

That admission of mutual confusion made Harper feel a little better, but he still said, "That answer really sucks."

"For the moment I don't have a better one to offer."

"Try again. Really."

"The surprise of your attack and the oxygen deficit might have affected my thinking."

"That's better." Harper couldn't help smiling a tiny bit. Tyr without his ready rationalizations felt so wrong. "As long as I don't surprise you or cut off your air again, we won't see a repeat, right?"

"Of course."

"Hey, if you could give Beka a thrill too when you guys spar, she'd appreciate it."

Tyr smiled a little. You might almost think he felt relieved. "I'll keep that in mind. Wait here for a moment." He walked into his apartment and threw something small to Harper.

Harper caught it instinctively. "A kiwi? A _kiwi_? You're nuts, Tyr."

"Not at all."

"At best you're eccentric. At worst you're nuts. I better not find out that this is part of some kind of Nietzschean mating ritual."

"If it were, I'd have to kill you now for seeing it."

"That wouldn't be a good idea."

"Then enjoy your kiwi in good health. Good night." The door closed behind him.

Harper stared at his fruit. "Come see the softer side of Tyr," he muttered to himself.

The door opened. "I heard that."

Harper stuck his tongue out at Tyr, then ran, not wanting to see how Tyr would choose to respond.

  


* * *

When Harper came up to the bridge the next day, only Tyr and Rommie were there. "Where is everybody?" he asked.

"Beka is preparing to leave in the Maru to settle the affairs of one Robert Jensen, a former crewmember. Dylan is packing as well. I suspect that he intends to force her to let him go along," Rommie said.

Beka was going to love Dylan forcing her hand. Hey, wait.... "Robert-- Aw, crap."

"You're going as well, aren't you?"

"Beka and Bobby-- Hell yeah, I'm going." Beka had no brain where Bobby was concerned. "What did he do this time?"

"He's dead."

"Couldn't happen to a nicer guy." Still... he wanted to make sure, and Beka would need him, whether she thought so or not. "I'm still going. Beka's going to need support and all that." And perhaps a shot to the head to make sure she kept it on straight. "But who's going to be captain here?"

"I am," Tyr said with a smile.

Oh. Boy. "Don't steal the ship, okay?" He really worried about Dylan's sanity sometimes.

Tyr just smiled more.

  


* * *

Harper's wrists ached as he pulled and tugged and tried to loosen the binding of wires wrapped around them. Still, whether by accident or design, Bobby hadn't been as cruel about it as some of the people Harper had been captured by. When the Nietzscheans had strung him up, he'd dangled, with only the tips of his toes touching the floor. Here, he could stand.

Of course, if the Maru's AP tanks blew as Bobby had set them to, he wouldn't be standing for long.

It had all gone to hell as Harper had figured it would, but did anybody ever listen? You still like Bobby now, Dylan? Beka had the excuse of looking at Bobby through the eyes of really and truly misplaced love, but how did Dylan excuse the slaps and chokings Harper had told him about? Hell, Dylan had seen the recording of Bobby walloping him.

"He saved your life," Beka had said. No, Bobby had saved Beka and his shipment to Cascada, with Harper's life thrown in as a side effect. He hadn't cared about some kid he'd intended to use and dump, breaking his promises. But Bobby was a great guy, a noble guy, a guy far more evolved in his morals than Beka had been.

Bobby was actually one of the most dangerous kinds of assholes, the kind who figured their supposedly noble causes excused all of their asshole behavior. Sure, plan to hold hostages and nuke three cities, all in the name of freeing an oppressed bunch of people. Yeah, freeing them to serve _you_ while getting vengeance on the folks who'd disfigured you. Funny how well that worked out.

Normally he could trust Beka to play a guy around, but this was _Bobby_, the once fucking love of her life, and in any case Bobby's new appearance would make it impossible for Beka to feign sexual interest anymore. Harper loved Beka dearly, but she was damned shallow when it came to bedmates, and Bobby with his new, awkward cyborg pieces now looked like the Tin Woodsman's bastard love child.

Bobby stomped back into the cockpit looking frustrated as all hell. "Seamus," he said. Then gut-punched him. Then stalked off again.

As Harper tried to breathe again, he went back to trying to pull his wrists free. Dammit, if his wrists hadn't been tied far over his head he would have _gnawed_ at them....

  


* * *

Later, after another round of insults with Bobby, Harper could only work desperately to free himself as he heard things going on outside the cockpit. Catfight between Beka and Margot. Big dramatic sounding scene between Beka and Bobby, with Harper chanting at her to just shoot the fucker already instead of wasting time trying to talk to him. Though it didn't sound like her shooting him had much effect once she finally got down to it. Then Dylan and Bobby fighting.... They were running out of time with those AP tanks. Harper was almost free, the blood from where he'd torn his skin now helping him start to slide his wrists loose.

He heard Bobby screaming desperately to Beka. Fuck, that was going to mess up her head. Once Bobby stopped, Dylan yelled something.

Then the dumb, furry aboriginal guy in vinyl ran in and untied him so he could save the ship. Finally. But as Harper ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, once in a while he could see Beka still kneeling forlornly beside Bobby's body. Having obviously killed him herself. Damn, damn, and damn.

  


* * *

Beka stayed on the Andromeda's bridge doing her version of Harper's work therapy, but when she went to her quarters to sleep, he was there waiting. Before she could say anything, he said, "I'm not going to tell you I'm sorry about Bobby. I'm not going to lie to you, unlike some people. I'm sorry for _you_ about Bobby because you loved him and he's gone and it hurts you, but not sorry about him. But, Beka... when I first met you you were gorgeous and smart, but once you let him go you started to live up to your full potential and become the bad-ass I know and worship today. I'm not going to be sorry about that happening. I refuse to be."

She smiled a tired little smile. "Thanks, Hooper."

"You're funny, boss. Is there anything I can do for you? I'm open to helping any way I can, including acting as your sex slave."

"Is that supposed to help me or you?"

"Both."

"You'll do anything?"

"Yeah."

"Even if it involves talking about Bobby?"

The sacrifices he made. "I won't join the 'he was a great guy' chorus, but I'll listen to you."

"Then play darts with me in the Maru."

Once again, bad things could happen in the Maru, but Beka would still see it as comforting, home. Well, hell, Harper felt the same way.

Harper put his arm around her. "If it helps you to get your ass kicked by me...."

Beka lightly thwapped the back of his head. "Oh, shut up."

  


* * *

Harper woke up when Beka shifted under him and said, "Hi, Dylan. Is it that late already?" They were snuggled together in Beka's bunk, his arm around her waist and one leg tangled with hers.

"Not very," Dylan answered.

"Late enough." To Harper's disappointment, Beka sat up, stretched, and stood. "At least this time I kicked Harper's ass."

"I let you win," Harper said.

She roughed his hair. "Yeah, right." As she picked up her boots she gave Harper a look that asked if he wanted to be left alone with Dylan. Harper gave a sleepy nod. She nodded back and said, "Thanks for presenting your ass for me to kick, Harper."

"I'll present my ass for anything you want to do to it."

"I'll keep that in mind. I'm shower-bound. See ya."

Once she left, Dylan said, "I should have trusted you about Bobby Jensen."

"Duh. I even showed you the recording," Harper answered.

Dylan looked uncomfortable. "Speaking of that, I was wondering if I could take a look at it again."

"Why? I liberated the recorder/projector fair and square."

"I wanted to see you again."

Harper smiled. "It's the hair, isn't it?"

Dylan smiled back. "What the hell did you put in it?"

"I think motor oil was one of my styling components. The extreme spikes went with the gutter punk chic look I had going. Considering that all I had were rags, I might as well do the best I could with them, make it a style thing." Yawning, Harper sat up and ran his hands through his hair. "The projector's on top of my bunk."

Dylan got it, sat down on the edge of the bed, and asked, "Where is that one in here?"

They sat together in an almost cozy way, side by side, and their fingers touched, warm and intimate, as Harper set the projector to play the right recording. Dylan looked unhappy, but said nothing as he stared at the chafe marks circling Harper's wrists, revealed as his long sleeves pulled away during the motion. Dylan fast-forwarded through Bobby's charming welcome speech and went right to the part where then-Harper had set the recorder down and walked into its field of vision.

"I thought about what things must have been like for you," Dylan said, "but until I saw this and heard Beka talking about first meeting you, I really had no idea." He stopped the recording just before the point where Bobby would wallop Harper and rewound it back to where he started, playing it again.

"She used to joke that she needed a whip and a chair to train me with."

"I'm sorry about Earth, Harper. Sorry about what it was like for you, and sorry that I screwed up their chance to get free. I'm sorry that I got your hopes up and then smashed them."

It was... a real, full apology. Finally. Harper couldn't feel anything about it yet. "I-- yeah. What--"

"Seeing what the Dragans had left of your friend Siobhan's arm started it, finding out that she had to dodge death squads even now, and seeing my actions from her perspective prodded me into thinking about things harder than I had on my own. Seeing you as you'd been fresh off Earth through the recorder and then Beka's eyes finished it. That did it for Earth. Watching you with that alien woman and then Sio did wonders for me regarding my recent behavior with Molly."

Sio? How _had_ that kiss looked to other people that Dylan had figured it out from it? Not that Harper minded, especially if it had led to an epiphany.

Harper couldn't stop beaming. "Thanks. That helps a lot."

Dylan moved to kiss his cheek, but Harper turned his head enough that it settled on the corner of his mouth instead. Dylan smiled back and stood. "I'll see you later."

Still no pushing. It put the ball in Harper's court, and he'd do a return serve once he absorbed it all. "Yeah." He figured he sounded stunned enough that Dylan could understand that he needed time to process. "Definitely."

It wasn't until Dylan had left the Maru that Harper realized that Dylan had taken the recorder/projector with him, "liberating" it. It made him misty-eyed to think of Dylan learning from them.

Then he ran after Dylan to get his property back, by force if necessary. Once Dylan noticed him, Dylan ran faster, laughing.

  


* * *

Tyr and Harper worked side by side on repairs, not unlike how earlier they'd stood side by side yelling at Dylan to fire back on the Than already. It didn't surprise Harper as often anymore when he found himself on the same wavelength as the ship's token Nietzschean.

Case in point... "Am I alone in remembering a time when our captain was smarter than this?" Tyr asked.

"No, I remember it too." And worried over what it meant. "Maybe those tight leather pants are cutting off the blood supply to his brain?" Not that Harper had any other complaints about them. Okay, he kind of did because the adrenaline rush of the walking dead situation had left him feeling itchy and fidgety and horny, and thinking about Dylan filling out those pants did not help.

"_I_ wear tight leather pants daily."

"And you're used to them, so it's not the same thing. Or are you cruising for a compliment? Tyr, buddy, pal, familiarity breeds contempt. I'm accustomed to you wearing leather pants. The thrill is gone." When Tyr hrmmphed, Harper said, "Note to self: Compliment Tyr's ass in those leather pants more often. Hey, don't even try to smack me, because I have a nano-welder in hand and I'm not afraid to use it." But Dylan really had been making some weird decisions lately.... "If he keeps making you acting captain so he can go out and kick ass personally, I might have to start asking you for orders first instead of him."

Tyr laughed. "I would dearly like to see that, especially if you choose to do it in front of him."

"We'll see."

"We'll see what?" Dylan asked as he strolled in, still glorious in black leather and a tank top.

"We'll see if I kill you for letting dead people walk the halls of my ship and put their dead fingers all over my baby's insides," Harper said as he stood up. Harper noticed that Tyr got a strange look on his face with some nose twitching as Dylan walked in.

"_Your_ ship?"

"Dead people, Dylan! The walking dead messing with my engineering work."

"The walking dead trying to infect people to add to their number."

"Sucky immune system or no, when I came back I did everything cautiously. Besides, we'd all be dead now if I hadn't been working to get us power to run away from the tetchy Bugs firing at us. If I'd followed your order to stay on the Maru, you wouldn't be alive and complaining now."

Dylan's eyes lingered suggestively on the protection suit Harper wore. Who knew it would be flattering as well as protective? Maybe adrenaline had left Dylan itchy and fidgety and horny too.

Harper set aside what that look did to him--for now--and said, "At least I risked my ass for a reason, and I did it in a protection suit, _and_ I retreated to safety when the living dead came to my station. You went out there just to personally kick some ass without knowing how the disease is spread or how to put the zombies down for good, scaring the hell out of me when I heard about it. You just made yourself a target, and your zombie beatdowns didn't even do much good. What was that about?"

"Being out there helped me think up a weapon against them."

"Except that I figured it out at exactly the same time and with less risk. You keep this kind of crap up, and I'll be working under captains Beka Valentine and Tyr Anasazi. Speaking of Tyr, I'm sure he told you that you should vent the victims."

"He wanted me to dump the live ones into space too." Dylan stood too casually and kept looking Harper over.

"Okay, I can't get behind _that_," sometimes, "but why couldn't you dump the corpses out? It's safer that way, and in this case we wouldn't have had an army of the walking dead wandering around trying to take over. We could have handled a handful of zombies." Weirdly enough, the more he argued the hornier he became.

Dylan really did fill out those pants well, especially at the moment, since arguing seemed to be having the same effect on him.

"Hindsight."

"Nope, because Tyr and I kept saying this stuff as the events were happening."

"Tyr?" Dylan suddenly asked, which made Harper turn around.

Tyr looked like he wouldn't mind having a bag of popcorn while he enjoyed the show. "Please, don't mind me."

Considering the steadily rising-- heh --lust on both sides, Harper got the feeling that they'd be heading on to a show that he didn't want Tyr to watch. Not because the thought of Tyr watching didn't make him hotter-- it did, kinky critter that he was --but because he figured that Tyr wouldn't be able to resist commenting throughout.

"Tyr, could you give us some privacy please?" Harper asked.

Normally, Tyr would probably find his request laughable and refuse, especially since Tyr had to know how torqued he and Dylan were at the moment. But messing with Dylan's head seemed to be paramount now, because Tyr just said, "Of course," and left, lips curling into a smug smile.

Dylan looked like he'd been hit with a stun rod. "How--"

"We've been hanging out, Tyr and me, getting down with our bad selves together," Harper answered.

"The thought of that scares the hell out of me."

"That's not _the_ reason we do it, but it is one of them."

Dylan took on a nearly flirtatious look. "Am I reading your signals right?"

"If you think my signals are saying that I think you're dead sexy and want to jump you, then yeah, you are."

"That's what I thought they were saying."

"Go, you."

"After you spent the last 15 minutes telling me I'm an idiot? I thought you preferred smart partners."

"Nah, I actually like 'em big and dumb, easy to manipulate and train and wrap around my finger." Harper smiled. "But I'll settle for you. And I think you might be trainable. I just have to be a firm, stern hand with the rolled-up newspaper."

Dylan raised an eyebrow. "You lost me on the last sentence."

"I know."

Harper moved in closer, starting to pounce, then stopped dead, his nostrils flaring. Ick. Dylan asked, "What?"

"Uh, Dylan, you've been wrestling with corpses. And I can tell."

"You're kidding-- You're not kidding."

"The smell really kills the mood."

"Decontamination and a shower might be a good idea."

"I am totally behind that. Given that my immune system sucks and all."

Dylan started to walk, with Harper pacing at his side at a slight distance. "It's not like you _stayed_ on the Maru," Dylan said.

"I had a job to do, asses to save. I'm just a mixed mess of emotions because it's sweet that you care and think about it like that but annoying that I have to be hiding myself away out of some damned weakness nobody else on the crew has."

"It's not like it's your fault."

"I know. And it's not like I ran up to them yelling, 'Here I am! Infect me!' like _some_ people did."

From his expression Dylan seemed to get the tease and the worry in Harper's words at once, even though his answer just addressed the tease. "Hey!"

"So the zombies passed the virus mouth to mouth. Did any of them try to kiss you? Aside from possessed Trance, I mean."

"Uhm."

"I knew it! You went out there looking for action."

Dylan flinched, and Harper realized that the last statement could have been taken as a critique on Dylan's cheating ways even though Harper hadn't intended that. Dylan castigated _himself_ along with making his own gravy; you could just stand back and let him self-flagellate, making him easy meat. As sad as the thought left Harper, part of him figured that keeping Dylan on his toes couldn't be all bad.

Dylan riposted, "Yeah, I went out looking for some live dead action."

"I thought as much."

They ended up at Dylan's quarters, which sent a melancholy pang through Harper, who hadn't been here in weeks, and then under unhappy circumstances. Dylan started to put a hand on Harper's shoulder, then remembered the eau de corpse issue, and moved his hand away. Harper said, "Thanks for the thought, D."

"I was an ass."

"I agree."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Dylan stripped his shirt off on the way to the bathroom and started on his pants as he entered. Black did great things for Dylan, but so did being naked. Knowing a good idea when he saw it, Harper sat on the bed and took off his boots, then his toolbelt, then started to unfasten the protective suit. Dylan, nude and blatantly interested, looked out the open bathroom door and said, "Please don't do that. I'd like to peel you out of that myself."

Harper's smile felt like one of those "cat that ate the canary" numbers. He wondered how it looked to Dylan. "Really."

Dylan's gaze sent a wave of heat through him. "Really. Be out soon." He turned around, giving a nice view of his ass, and went back inside.

Listening to Dylan go through decon and shower while he was this hard had to be one of the most torturous things Harper had done to himself recently. Unfair, deeply unfair. His imagination kept taking him to places he couldn't go yet, not if he didn't want to go alone. Damn, his suit felt way too tight.

Dylan finally walked out, wet and erect, straight out of a porn vid, and stood in front of Harper. "I was very thorough."

Mouth watering, Harper basked in Dylan's shower heat. "Yeah, took you forever, you sadist."

"I know." Dylan crouched down and kissed Harper. "Better?"

"Much." Harper licked some trailing beads of water off Dylan's neck.

Dylan shivered. "I really need to get fucked, hard and fast. Does that sound good to you?"

Dumb question. "As long as I'm the one fucking you."

"Actually I was thinking of asking Beka to come in here with a strap-on while you watch."

"How did you know about that?"

Dylan's eyes widened. Harper laughed. Dylan said, "Oh, I get it."

"I'm not joking about the strap-on, but she'll have to get in line. You're mine first."

Dylan's fingers fumbled with the suit's fastener, but the fumbling felt great against Harper's chest. "Did you pick out the tightest suit on purpose?" Dylan asked as he pulled it down.

"It's the only one that remotely fits me. You'll have to take it up with Rommie. I think maybe she likes me in tight black."

"I'll thank her later." His hands finally got to Harper's cock. "No room for underwear, I see."

"Oh. Yeah. Hey, it's _my_ suit, so I can go commando if I like. Yeah. Oh, yeah, thank me now. But don't thank me too much now because I won't be good for much for a while if you do. I need--"

"I slicked up while in the bathroom," Dylan said against the trembling skin of Harper's stomach.

Harper bucked. "Wow, and people think I'm the impatient one." He helped Dylan peel him out of the suit, which wasn't as easy as it looked since the suit _was_ so tight. It teased him into an agony of lust.

Finally they moved against one another skin to skin. Dylan went down on his hands and knees on the floor and presented himself, making Harper's cock twitch and his mouth go dry. "Please," Dylan said.

Harper had hoped to take things a bit slower, but the sight of Dylan like this threw that thought--and every other thought--right out the window. He thrust, sliding in and out and in, and lost himself. He'd missed this, missed Dylan, missed the feel of Dylan trembling against and around him, missed the needy moans and gasps that told him that Dylan liked what he was doing. Hard and fast? He could so do that.... Harper set up a quick, unrelenting rhythm, riding Dylan, while fisting Dylan's slick cock.

Dylan didn't last long and cried out Harper's name as he came, shaking, hot in Harper's hands, triggering Harper off as well. Once the blaze of pleasure started to ebb a bit, Harper took a long, salty lick off of Dylan's broad back, which he currently rested, boneless, against.

Dylan shivered and gasped out a laugh. "I think my knees are carpet burnt."

"Bed?"

"Yeah, I'd say so."

Loose and drowsy, Harper snuggled into cool sheets that smelled like Dylan. Or, rather, sheets that smelled the way Dylan smelled when he didn't smell like he'd just been thoroughly fucked. Both were good.

Dylan rested next to him and stroked his hair. "That was... really something. Arguing?"

"Why do you think I'm telling people off all the time?"

"Because you enjoy it for its own sake."

"That too."

"I'll hear it all over again once Beka's well enough to review what I did."

Harper hadn't even known Beka had been infected until everything had worked out and she'd been cured. Ditto for Dylan. They looked fine now, but they came so close to dying and having their bodies be used by parasitic life-forms. It made his skin crawl and killed his sex buzz.

"I want you to stop taking so many unnecessary risks," Harper said.

"Says the engineer who disobeyed a direct order to protect himself from contagion in the Maru."

"That was a necessary risk. C'mon, Dylan, you know what I mean."

"I know. I don't really have a deathwish. No matter how it seems. I don't want to die; I have too many things I enjoy." Dylan kissed him.

"You're smooth."

"Thank you, but it's true. It was incredible when you were right there with the setting we needed to put the zombies down for good."

Harper still had no idea how Dylan had thought up the same solution at the same time, but it had been some kick feeling like they were on the exact same wavelength. "Are you saying you're turned on by my mind?"

"Hell yeah."

"Oh, yeah, you are so smooth."

"Stay with me?" Dylan asked, his soul in his eyes.

It was the opposite of smooth, and it melted Harper completely. He burrowed in close. "Yeah, Dylan. I'll stay."

 

### End


End file.
